Often after this time I saw a great deal of the Duchess of Cambridge in different country houses, and on different occasions, and the unceasing kindness I have met with for years from Princess Mary is repaid by all I have to offer, “the grateful homage of a loving heart.” I took the deepest interest in her marriage with the Duke of Teck, to whom at that period we gave the name of “Prince Charming.” But I am once more wandering from my subject and indulging in the flittings of a butterfly. The party to which I have alluded, as I said before, was in the opening of the New Year of 1859, but alas! the good wishes and happy auguries which that merry company had interchanged were not destined to be fulfilled. Before the month of March was over Hinchingbrooke was hung with black, and the sudden death of Lady Sandwich plunged us all in the deepest mourning. Her bright blue eyes were closed, the tones of her bird-like voice were hushed, and in her I lost one of the truest and most indulgent of friends. But my visits to that dear old house were not discontinued, for, on Lord Sandwich’s second marriage to Lady Blanche Egerton[96] I found one willing to keep up the old traditions and retain the old friendships of the family, and ever ready to reinstate me in the place I had so long looked upon as a home. Nor is my case altered with passing years and changed circumstances, for the present owner,[97] whom I have known and loved since he was an Eton boy, is continually reminding me that the doors of Hinchingbrooke are ever open to his own and his mother’s friend. Footnote 96: Daughter of the first Earl of Ellesmere. Footnote 97: Edward, eighth Earl of Sandwich. ------- OSSINGTON It had been a long promise that I should pay a summer visit to Ossington in Nottinghamshire, the residence of my good friends, Evelyn Denison, Speaker of the House of Commons, and his wife, Lady Charlotte, _née_ Bentinck.[98] Shortly after my return from Madeira, I proceeded on my way thither with the delightful prospect of meeting Lady Waterford,[99] the Duc and Duchesse d’Aumale, their son,[100] and my old friend Wilberforce, Bishop of Oxford. Footnote 98: Daughter of the fourth Duke of Portland. Footnote 99: Louisa, daughter of Lord Stuart de Rothesay, widow of the third Marquis of Waterford. Footnote 100: Prince de Condé.