In the year 1849, my brother Charles and his wife, after a short sojourn with us, embarked for the Cape of Good Hope, where he had obtained an appointment; but there were still “good times in store for me,” for, when the season was at its height, I went to London to pay a most delightful visit to my friend Adelaide Sartoris.[47] Her comparatively small drawing-rooms in Park Place were the resort of all that was remarkable and superior in Society, whether as to talent or position. The best _artistes_ in music, painting, sculpture, or histrionic celebrity, were her frequent and welcome guests, enlivened, as the Society papers would say, by a “sprinkling of beauty, rank and fashion.” Here, for the first time, I heard the noble voice of Charles Santley, which I always likened to three-piled crimson velvet, and from that moment I have never met him without pleasure, or listened to him without delight. Footnote 47: Younger daughter of Charles Kemble, and sister of Frances Anne Butler. [Sidenote: VISIT TO MRS SARTORIS] Charles Hallé, too, was there, with his exquisite rendering of Mendelssohn, Beethoven, etc., whom I have often told that his playing made me feel good and happy for at least a week; and his kindly, friendly wife, and occasionally, though not at that time out in the world, their eldest daughter, with whom it is still a pleasure to talk of those old days, and who, never forgetting my admiration for her father’s talent, includes me in many a kind invitation to profit by it. Here, too, I often met Lord Dufferin, Lord Fordwich,[48] and Frederick Leighton, the tried and trusty friend of the Sartorises, who sang duets with Adelaide in songs of many nations, and whose fame as a painter, although still young, was so firmly established, that his future honours as P.R.A. caused no wonder to his friends or to the public. Here also was an Italian singer, whose simple-minded remark on one occasion caused us great merriment. Ciabatti was a man of great personal beauty, and I overheard him one evening complaining to Mrs Sartoris that this “dowry,” like unto Italia’s, had been fatal to him. “I seldom get an engagement,” he said, “for the moment the mammas see me, they will not run the risk of the daughters falling in love with me, for, you know, _cara_, I am so very, very handsome!” No idle boast, but the plain unvarnished truth. Footnote 48: Francis, sixth Earl Cowper; born 1834; married, 1870, Lady Katrine Compton, daughter of William, fourth Marquess of Northampton. During that visit I was in my element—concerts at home and abroad, operas, theatres and dramatic entertainments, in which my hostess and I took part. The Alfred Wigans were our common friends, and it was arranged on one occasion that a representation should be given in the little theatre at Store Street, for the benefit of the above-named distinguished actor. The piece chosen was _The Merry Monarch_, and the caste was as follows:—