One lovely evening we drove out to Greenwich to dinner, in Newcastle's four-in-hand coach. It was not the new style drag, but a huge, lumbering affair, all open, in which one sat sideways. There were postillions in quaint dress and a general flavour of the Middle Ages about the whole episode. There was nothing of the Middle Ages about the dinner however. There were twenty-five of us present in all; among the number Lady Susan Vane-Tempest, a beautiful woman with most brilliant black hair, and Major Stackpoole, and dear Lady Rossmore, his wife (who was so impulsive that I have seen her jump up in her box to throw me the flowers she was wearing), and some of the Hopes (Newcastle's own family), that race that always behaves so badly! A little later in the season, my mother and I accepted with delight an invitation from the Duke and Duchess of Newcastle to visit them at their place in Brighton. The Duke naively explained that he had been having "a run of rotten luck" of late, and thought that I might turn it. Apparently I did, for the very day after we got there his horse won in the races. I sang, of course, in the evening, as their guest. There was no thought of remuneration, nor could there be. The graceful way in which our dear host showed his appreciation was to send me a pin, beautifully executed, of a horse and jockey done in enamel, enclosed in a circle of perfect crystal, the whole surrounded with a rim of superb diamonds and amethysts--purple and white being his racing colours. The brooch was inscribed simply with the date on which his horse ran and won. I wore that pin for years. When I had it cleaned at Tiffany's a long time afterwards, it made quite a sensation, it was so unique. Once, I remember, I was in the studio dwelling on Fifteenth Street of the Richard Watson Gilders when I discovered that, having dressed in a hurry, I had put my pin in upside-down. I started to change it, and then said: "O, what's the use. Nobody will ever notice it. They are all too literary and superior around here!" The first man Mrs. Gilder presented to me was evidently quite too much interested in the pin to talk to me. "Excuse me," he at last said politely, "but you will like to know, I feel sure, that your brooch is upside-down." "O, is it," said I sweetly. But I did not take the trouble to change it even then, and, afterwards, I would not have done so for worlds, for I should have been cheated out of a great deal of quiet amusement. One of the contributors to _The Century_ was later presented to me, and the effect of that pin upside-down was more irritating than it had been to the first man. He almost stood on his head trying to discover what was the trouble. At last: "You've got your pin upside-down," he snapped at me as though a personal affront had been offered him. "I know I have," I snapped back. "What do you wear it that way for?" he demanded. "To make conversation!" I returned, nearly as cross as he was.