“I remember being taken, by my grandmother, to tea with Richard Marquis of Hertford. He lived at the corner of the Rue Lafitte, and his fine rooms were crowded with objets d’art—although not smothered in _clocks_, as they afterwards became when Wallace and Scott occupied them. Everything was most sumptuous, but I recollect perfectly that when the tea was brought in by a very solemn major-domo, whose long grey whiskers I can see to this day, Lord Hertford went to a beautiful Louis XVI. secrétaire, which he unlocked, and brought out the sugar-basin, which he carefully put away again after tea. (Lord Hertford was a very handsome man, but frail and delicate.) Not long afterwards my mother and I were invited to spend an afternoon at Bagatelle, where Richard Wallace entertained us, as Lord Hertford was engaged—so he sent word—in Paris. The gardens were beautiful—as they still are—but the house was not so full as the Rue Lafitte. “My grandfather, Colonel Gurwood, who had served through the Peninsular War in the Light Division, was given a captaincy in the 10th Hussars in 1814, and Richard Seymour joined the regiment when he was seventeen years old and ten years’ junior to my grandfather, who became much attached to him. This friendship lasted through life. “I possess three volumes of bound letters to Colonel Gurwood from Lord Yarmouth, by which name Lord Hertford was know from 1822 to 1842, when he succeeded his father, Francis, the third Marquess of Steyne of ‘Vanity Fair.’ “These letters are interesting, as they contain many references to the collection of bric-à-brac which Lord Yarmouth and Wallace, his secretary, had already commenced to form. Many fine things which belonged to my grandfather, and are now the property of my sister, were purchased by Lord Yarmouth and Wallace or by their advice. In return, my grandfather always bought for Lord Yarmouth his riding and driving horses. He used to send them to Paris, where Lord Yarmouth lived with his mother, Lady Hertford, Maria Fagnani. “Many times have I heard my grandmother and my mother tell the story of Sir Richard Wallace’s adoption by Lord Hertford. Wallace was the son of Lord Yarmouth by a girl, Agnes Jackson by name, who was a kind of _fille du régiment_ of the 10th Hussars, and young Seymour made a home for her in Paris while the liaison lasted. There Wallace was born, and when Seymour parted from his mistress, the child was placed with a concierge in the Rue de Clichy, where he ran wild under a _porte cochère_ until he was about six years old.