A stray anecdote occurs to me, as I write, of the very artistic but eccentric Louisa Lady Ashburton, a gifted lady who knew most of the really great literary and artistic people of her age, and counted many others, such as Watts and Carlyle, her intimates. My mother, who knew her very well, painted several interiors of her residence, Kent House, Knightsbridge, in one of which a striking portrait of her figured. But my story is chiefly concerned with the exacting old lady from whom I received a letter through her secretary (previous to my introduction to her), saying, "She had taken a fancy to a pencil-sketch of mine, of a child that she had seen, and that if I would lunch with her, at a day and hour mentioned, we could discuss the possibility of my making a portrait of her little grandson." The day arrived and with it a thick fog--for it was in November--I called upon the lady at the time stated in her letter, and was informed that she was out. After waiting some little time, I took myself off for a short while; had lunch elsewhere and returned about three o'clock, and was more fortunate this time, for I was announced into the dining-room, where I found Lady Ashburton and her lady secretary at lunch, to which they had just sat down. I was much astonished, after being requested to take a seat at the table, to receive rather a strong glare from my hostess, with the query, "Who is he?" to her secretary. "This is Mr. Leslie Ward; don't you remember the letter I wrote at your request asking him to lunch to-day?" Whereupon the forgetful lady remembered, and asked me promptly to have a glass of port. Afterwards we went to the drawing-room, where the little boy was sent for and I was requested to begin the drawing there and then, and upon my remarking that the light was too bad owing to the fog, and that I should be very pleased to make a mental study of the child before I began my portrait upon a brighter day, she observed that she quite understood from me that I had come to make the drawing, and said it was perfectly easy to draw by lamp-light, so I wasn't allowed out of the house before I had started. Then I found her ladyship, although considerably advanced in years, was still a student of drawing, for she produced the cast of a head and was getting ready to copy it. I was straining my eyes in attempting to draw the little boy, while she was endeavouring to place the cast in position and soliciting my attention to her work at frequent intervals.