It seems that she knows quite well what is the matter with her and what is before her, as she nursed her husband through his long malady. Isn't it awful? She spoke about Francis, recalling his first afternoon at Marlborough House, when he was quite small and wept bitterly when the negro minstrels appeared. I told her he was working for diplomacy, and she said she would be much pleased to see him when he came to London as attache. [Illustration: Entrance to the Club and Gardens, Cowes, Isle of Wight. From a photograph by Broderick.] The Prince came and talked a little while, and also recalled the last time we met last summer on the quai at Nuremberg, both coming from Marienbad, and swallowing hastily a cup of very hot coffee. I thought he looked grave and preoccupied. He talked a little about Cowes. He said he never remembered such a bad week--awful weather and few yachts. He was very complimentary about the two big American yachts, Itwana and Nahma; said he had never seen the Nahma, which he regretted, but he didn't know Mrs. Goelet--did I? "Oh yes, very well, ever since she was a child, and her mother and father before." I was sure she would be very pleased to receive them. The Prince said they were in such deep mourning that they had been on no yacht, and he hoped there would be no party. I said Mrs. Goelet herself was in deep mourning. After some consultation with the Princess they said they would like to go on board to-morrow morning at 12 o'clock (they leave early Tuesday morning), and I promised to speak to Mrs. Goelet. He was amused when I said I liked the "Japs" so much, as he rather invented them. They came to sing to him one summer when he was ill at Cowes and on his yacht all the time. There are four people, three women and a man (a Frenchman), all masked, the women in pretty Japanese dresses and the man in ordinary clothes. One woman accompanies at the piano by heart, and extremely well; the other two and the man sing and dance--dancing very moderate--a sort of "walk around," but the singing very good; all English except one or two little French songs the man sings alone. One of their favourite ditties, "Mary housemaid," always brings down the house. It is just the sort of thing that would have amused us in our young days when we used to play and sing by heart and invent steps. The women are very graceful--I don't know if they are pretty, as one never sees their faces--and the man extraordinary, very amusing and never vulgar.