England was by no means an unknown country to Miss Leiter. She had been accustomed from her early childhood to spending much time in Europe, and a London season, which is the climax of many an American girl's social ambition, was not a new experience to her. The season of 1894, however, marked a turning-point in her life. Hon. Thomas F. Bayard, who was our Ambassador at the Court of St. James at the time, had been married not long before to Miss May Clymer, of Washington, a daughter of Dr. Clymer, of the navy, and a granddaughter of Admiral Shubrick. The Bayards had known Miss Leiter at home, and they undoubtedly contributed much to the reception she everywhere met during that season in England, for they themselves were much sought after, and the distinction of their position gave prominence to her. They brought her into contact with a class of men and women among whom her own highly endowed mind found an inspiration on whose wings she rose in a short time to a new fame. Among those who paid her the tribute of a profound admiration was a rising young secretary of the kingdom, a man of scholarly tastes and an author of established reputation. "I found," recently wrote Julian Ralph from India, "a sure key to the viceroy's character in between the lines of a dozen speeches that he made in January and February, 1899. Some of his qualities, more especially his quick sympathy, humor, and the sentimental and romantic inclination, are rather more American than English.... It is consoling to us Americans to find that the man who has attracted so much beauty and talent away from our country is himself the next thing to an American." When he met Miss Leiter, though he was but thirty-five years of age, Mr. Curzon had been a member of Parliament, representing the district of Southport, for eight years. He had already wealth and distinction, and was the heir to the title of his father, who is the fourth Baron Scarsdale. His ambition, moreover, was of that high order which found in Miss Leiter a responsive attitude and a quickening sympathy. His literary and political career--in a word, the position he had made for himself through his own talents--was to her a matter of far deeper interest than the eventual inheritance of his father's estate and title. The reputation which his writings on the political questions in the East had given him particularly attracted her admiration. Replying four years later to the address of welcome delivered to him by the city of Bombay, Lord Curzon expressed gratification at its kindly tone both for himself and his wife, who, he said, came to India with sympathies as warm as his own, and who looked forward with earnest delight to a life of happy labor in the midst of its people. [Illustration: Mattie Mitchell (Duchesse de Rochefoucauld) From photograph by C. M. Bell]