It was on the occasion of her brother’s[103] marriage with the beautiful Theodosia Vyner,[104] that Lady Marian, who presided as hostess during her son’s minority, threw open the gardens, pleasure-grounds and park to a large and numerous assemblage of friends and acquaintance, consisting for the most part of the _élite_ of London society. It was a beautiful summer’s day, and at the two then equi-distant stations of Berkhampstead and Tring innumerable conveyances were in waiting to convey the guests to the scene of festivity. My brother Cavendish[105] and I chose Tring as our halting-place, and were fortunate in so doing, as the entrance from that side is perhaps the more picturesque of the two. Footnote 103: Charles, third Marquis of Northampton; born 1816; died 1859. Footnote 104: He married Theodosia Vyner, daughter of Henry Vyner, Esq., and Lady Mary de Gray. She died in 1864. Footnote 105: Cavendish Spencer Boyle; born 1814; died 1868. [Illustration: ASHRIDGE. ] The description of most garden parties is likely to bear much similarity, but certainly this was a most brilliant scene, for London was in the height of the season, though not sufficiently advanced to interfere with the freshness and fashion of the ladies’ toilettes. There was a great preponderance of beauty, amongst whom little Florence Paget[106] looked especially lovely, flitting in and out among the flower-beds, whose brightness she seemed to have borrowed in the hues of her costume and the brilliancy of her whole aspect. That was my first introduction to stately Ashridge, which was henceforth destined to become a real home to me. Footnote 106: Lady Florence Paget, daughter of Henry, second Marquess of Anglesey; married first the fourth Marquis of Hastings, and secondly Sir George Chetwynd, Bart. I know not how, at this moment, when my loss is so recent, to attempt the slightest record of the friend[107]—the word is an old-fashioned one, but is there another to supersede it?—the benefactress, the _confidante_, of so long a period. She was undoubtedly one of the most gifted beings I ever encountered. “What she did still bettered what was done....” Footnote 107: Lady Marian Alford, died 1888. ------- WREST PARK