Government House garden-party are very hard to beat. There is an idea that the Australian women’s complexions are not good, they themselves being the first to rave about English roses; but I think their complexions are exquisite, though far more delicate in tint, and perhaps not of so lasting a quality as those seen at home. Still the Melbourne girls resemble the English girls infinitely more than do their Sydney sisters, who are more exotic and altogether fragile in appearance. New fashions come in slowly and dubiously, for the people luckily possess a strong sense of the ludicrous, and are very much afraid of being made to look foolish, some snapshots taken of the wearers of the hobble-skirt at the last Cup sealing once and for all its inevitable doom. To this day I smile at the remembrance of the one and only true Directoire costume which ever graced a Melbourne racecourse—worn as it was by a beauteous, though unorthodox, lady—I believe on the Oaks day, the most exclusive and smart day of the whole Cup week. The dress was slit up one side in true Directoire fashion, showing a length of shapely leg well to the knee, and—or so some whispered—a jewelled garter. When scandal reaches a certain point it becomes almost fame, and certainly that particular lady on that particular day was the most discussed person in Australia; her name and that of her protector being on everyone’s tongue. It was the year in which Lord Nolan won the Cup. He was a complete outsider, and nobody had the slightest idea that there was any chance for him. Just before the race a man belonging to our party came up to me, and advised me to put something on him; for he had got a tip that he was bound to win. But I was adamant. I very rarely bet, and I never win if I do; while it takes such a terrible amount of hard work to make any money that I dare not risk losing it.