Then in walked Maria, Dowager Duchess of Somerset. I cannot adequately describe her. She was a little, dumpy, old woman with no corsets, and dressed in a black alpaca gown and prunella shoes--those awful things that the present generation are lucky enough never to have even seen. She furthermore wore a _fichu_ of a style which had been entirely extinct for fifty years at least. I really do not know how there happened to be anyone living even then who could or would make such things for her. No modern modiste could have achieved them and survived. Her whole appearance was certainly beyond words. But she had very beautiful hands, and when she spoke, the great lady was heard instantly. It was all there, of course, only curiously costumed, not to say disguised. After Colonel Stebbins had presented me and she had greeted me kindly, he said: "I am sure Miss Kellogg will be glad to sing for you." "O," said Her Grace, carelessly, "I haven't a piano. I don't play or sing and so I don't need one. But I'll get one in." I was amazed at the idea of a Duchess not owning a piano and having to hire one when, in America, most middle-class homes possess one at whatever sacrifice, and every little girl is expected to take music lessons whether she has any ability or not. Even yet I do not quite understand how she managed without a piano for her musical lions to play on. She did get one in without delay and I was speedily invited to come and sing. I thought I would pay a particular compliment to my English hostess on that occasion by choosing a song the words of which were written by England's Poet Laureate, so I provided myself with the lovely setting of _Tears, Idle Tears_; music written by an American, W. H. Cook by name, who besides being a composer of music possessed a charming tenor voice. In my innocence I thought this choice would make a hit. Imagine my surprise therefore when my hostess's comment on the text was: "Very pretty words. Who wrote them?" "Why," I stammered, "Tennyson." "Indeed? And, my dear Miss Kellogg, who _was_ Tennyson?" Almost immediately after Colonel Stebbins bought her a handsome set of the Poet Laureate's works with which she expressed herself as hugely pleased, although I am personally doubtful if she ever opened a single volume. She did not forget the _Tears, Idle Tears_ episode, however, and had the wit and good humour often to refer to it afterwards and, usually, quite aptly. One of her most charming notes to me touches on it gracefully. She was a great letter-writer and her epistles, couched in flowery terms and embellished with huge capitals of the olden style, are treasures in their way: " ...I know all I feel; and the Tears (_not idle Tears_) that overflow when I read about that Charming and Illustrious 'glorious Queen' ... who is winning all hearts and delighting everyone...." Another letter, one which I think is a particularly interesting specimen of the Victorian style of letter-writing, runs: