One evening we gave a theatrical performance consisting of the pretty little comedietta of “The Rough Diamond,” in which Frederic Ponsonby,[61] Cavendish, and I took the principal parts, and another time we arranged some _tableaux vivants_, which were among the best I have ever seen. We took two or three of the Sir Joshua’s which embellished the walls; one, a picture of his grandfather, was impersonated by the present lord, whose likeness to the original painting was most striking. Another most beautiful _tableau_ was that of Lady Waldegrave and her two sisters, from the famous group at Strawberry Hill. Lady Spencer and her two sisters[62] represented the three ladies in this exquisite portrait; and once more the family likeness they bore to the picture in question made it appear rather a replica than a living representation. The magnificent Vandyke of the two brothers-in-law, Lords Bristol and Bedford, which have been the glory of many later exhibitions, formed another successful specimen of our skill, and was entered in the programme as a miniature copy. The two noblemen above mentioned were personated by Horace Seymour[63] and Courtenay Boyle, the one dark, the other fair, but both comely youths at the time of which I am speaking. In this slight record of the annals of Althorp during my time, I cannot resist making some allusions to more than one member of the household whose doings and sayings caused us no slight amusement. Footnote 61: Brother to Sir Henry Ponsonby, afterwards in Holy Orders. Footnote 62: The late Lady Clifden and the late Lady Charles Bruce. Footnote 63: Brother to Charlotte, Countess Spencer. Prominent among these was the house-steward, Thorpe, a man of great importance in his own estimation, as well as in that of others. His tastes were ultra-aristocratic, his manners in accordance with his tastes, and his language choice, very flowery, and sometimes quite original. One day, soon after his return from Cambridge, Lord Althorp thus addressed the worthy major-domo: “I think you understand that I wish my servant, Lennard, to go out of livery and become an upper servant.” “My lord,” was the pompous reply, “I have already given him his _statu quo_.” One afternoon when the reception-rooms were being decorated for a ball, to which the whole neighbourhood was invited, Lady Spencer (the present) asked Thorpe if the gardener had finished arranging the ornamental monogram over the door. “Well, my Lady,” was the reply, in a hesitating tone of voice, “I believe he has done so, but I wish your Ladyship would cast an eye over it.” Lady Spencer saw by the speaker’s manner that there was something he found fault with. “I am very busy,” she said; “is it not all right?” “I am sorry to say, my Lady,” the words pronounced in a tone of deep regret, “they have placed over your Ladyship’s monogram a paltry baron’s coronet.” [Sidenote: THE CHOULERS]