"I don't see it," he said curtly. As a matter of fact I had just realised that upside-down was the way to wear the pin henceforward. I said to Jeannette Gilder the next day: "My upside-down pin was the hit of the evening. I am never going to wear it any other way!" I have kept my word during all these years. Never have I worn Newcastle's pin except upside-down, and I have never known anyone to whom I was talking to fail to fall into the trap and beg my pardon and say, "you have your brooch on upside-down." Years later I was once talking to Annie Louise Gary in Rome and a perfectly strange man came up and began timidly: "I beg your pardon, but your----" "I know," I told him kindly. "My pin is upside-down, isn't it?" He retreated, thinking me mad, I suppose. But the fun of it has been worth some such reputation. Different people approach the subject so differently. Some are so apologetic and some are so helpful and some, like my _Century_ acquaintance, are so immensely and disproportionately annoyed. But I am wandering far afield and quite forgetting my first London season which, even at this remote day, is an absorbing recollection to me. I had at that time enough youthful enthusiasm and desire to "keep going" to have stocked a regiment of débutantes! Although I was quite as carefully chaperoned and looked out for in England as I had been in America, there was still an unusual sense of novelty and excitement about the days there. I had all of my clothes from Paris and learned that, as Sir Michael Costa had insultingly informed me, I was "quite a pretty woman anyhow." Add to this the generous praise that the London public gave me professionally, and is it to be considered a wonder that I felt as if all were a delightful fairy tale with me as the princess? As my mother has noted in her diary, we went one evening to Covent Garden to hear Patti sing. One really charming memory of Patti is her Juliette. She was never at all resourceful as an actress and was never able to stamp any part with the least creative individuality; but her singing of that music was perfect. Maurice Strakosch came into our box to present to us Baron Alfred de Rothschild who became one of the English friends whom we never forgot and who never forgot us. Maddox, too, called on us in the box that evening. He was the editor of a little journal that was the rival of the _Court Circular_. Maddox I saw a good deal of later and found him very original and entertaining. He ordered champagne that night, so we had quite a little party in our box between the acts.