sometimes introduced me with emotional pride to the same man or woman two or three times in one evening:

"'This is my little girl—very clever, etc., etc. Colonel Kingscote says she goes harder across country than any one, etc., etc.'

"This exasperated me. Turning to my mother in the thick of the guests that had gathered in our house one evening to hear a professional singer, he said at the top of his voice while the lady was being conducted to the piano:

"'Don't bother, my dear, I think every one would prefer to hear
Posie sing.'

"I well remember Laura and myself being admonished by him on our returning from a party at the Cyril Flowers' in the year 1883, where we had been considerably run by dear Papa and twice introduced to Lord Granville. We showed such irritability going home in the brougham that my father said:

"'It's no pleasure taking you girls out.'

"This was the only time I ever heard him cross with me.

"He always told us not to frown and to speak clearly, just as my mother scolded us for not holding ourselves up. I can never remember seeing him indifferent, slack or idle in his life. He was as violent when he was dying as when he was living and quite without self-pity.

"He hated presents, but he liked praise and was easily flattered; he was too busy even for MUCH of that, but he could stand more than most of us. If it is a little simple, it is also rather generous to believe in the nicest things people can say to you; and I think I would rather accept too much than repudiate and refuse: it is warmer and more enriching.

"My father had not the smallest conceit or smugness, but he had a little child-like vanity. You could not spoil him nor improve him; he remained egotistical, sound, sunny and unreasonable; violently impatient, not at all self-indulgent—despising the very idea of a valet or a secretary—but absolutely self-willed; what he intended to do, say or buy, he would do, say or buy AT ONCE.

"He was fond of a few people—Mark Napier, [Footnote: The Hon. Mark Napier, of Ettrick.] Ribblesdale, Lord Haldane, Mr. Heseltine, Lord Rosebery and Arthur Balfour—and felt friendly to everybody, but he did not LOVE many people. When we were girls he told us we ought to make worldly marriages, but in the end he let us choose the men we loved and gave us the material help in money which enabled us to marry them. I find exactly the opposite plan adopted by most parents: they sacrifice their children to loveless marriages as long as they know there is enough money for no demand ever to be made upon themselves.

"I think I understood my father better than the others did. I guessed his mood in a moment and in consequence could push further and say more to him when he was in a good humour. I lived with him, my mother and Eddy alone for nine years (after my sister Laura married) and had a closer personal experience of him. He liked my adventurous nature. Ribblesdale's [Footnote: Lord Ribblesdale, of Gisburne.] courtesy and sweetness delighted him and they were genuinely fond of each other. He said once to me of him:

"'Tommy is one of the few people in the world that have shown me gratitude.'"

I cannot pass my brother-in-law's name here in my diary without some reference to the effect which he produced on us when he first came to Glen.

He was the finest-looking man that I ever saw, except old Lord Wemyss, [Footnote: The Earl of Wemyss and March, father of the present Earl.] the late Lord Pembroke, Mr. Wilfrid Blunt and Lord D'Abernon. He had been introduced to my sister Charty at a ball in London, when he was twenty-one and she eighteen. A brother-officer of his in the Rifle Brigade, seeing them waltzing together, asked him if she was his sister, to which he answered:

"No, thank God!"

I was twelve when he first came to Glen as Thomas Lister: his fine manners, perfect sense of humour and picturesque appearance captivated every one; and, whether you agreed with him or not, he had a perfectly original point of view and was always interested and suggestive. He never misunderstood but thoroughly appreciated my father. …

Continuing from my diary:

"My papa was a character-part; and some people never understood character-parts.

"None of his children are really like him; yet there are resemblances which are interesting and worth noting.

"Charty on the whole resembles him most. She has his transparent simplicity, candour, courage laid want of self-control; but she is the least selfish woman I know and the least self-centred. She is also more intolerant and merciless in her criticisms of other people, and has a finer sense of humour. Papa loved things of good report and never believed evil of any one. He had a rooted objection to talking lightly of other people's lives; he was not exactly reverent, but a feeling of kindly decent citizenship prevented him from thinking or speaking slightingly of other people.

"Lucy has Papa's artistic and generous side, but none of his self- confidence or decisiveness; all his physical courage, but none of his ambition.

"Eddy has his figure and deportment, his sense of justice and emotional tenderness, but none of his vitality, impulse or hope. Jack has his ambition and push, keenness and self-confidence; but he is not so good-humoured in a losing game. Frank has more of his straight tongue and appreciation of beautiful things, but none of his brains.

"I think I had more of Papa's moral indignation and daring than the others; and physically there were great resemblances between us: otherwise I do not think I am like him. I have his carriage, balance and activity—being able to dance, skip and walk on a rope—and I have inherited his hair and sleeplessness, nerves and impatience; but intellectually we look at things from an entirely different point of view. I am more passionate, more spiritually perplexed and less self-satisfied. I have none of his powers of throwing things off. I should like to think I have a little of his generosity, humanity and kindly toleration, some of his fundamental uprightness and integrity, but when everything has been said he will remain a unique man in people's memory."

Writing now, fourteen years later, I do not think that I can add much to this.

Although he was a business man, he had a wide understanding and considerable elasticity.

In connection with business men, the staggering figures published in the official White Book of November last year showed that the result of including them in the Government has been so remarkable that my memoir would be incomplete if I did not allude to them. My father and grandfather were brought up among City people and I am proud of it; but it is folly to suppose that starting and developing a great business is the same as initiating and conducting a great policy, or running a big Government Department.

It has been and will remain a puzzle over which intellectual men are perpetually if not permanently groping:

"How comes it that Mr. Smith or Mr. Brown made such a vast fortune?"

The answer is not easy. Making money requires FLAIR, instinct, insight or whatever you like to call it, but the qualities that go to make a business man are grotesquely unlike those which make a statesman; and, when you have pretensions to both, the result is the present comedy and confusion.

I write as the daughter of a business man and the wife of a politician and I know what I am talking about, but, in case Mr. Bonar Law—a pathetic believer in the "business man"—should honour me by reading these pages and still cling to his illusions on