The Embassy was practically an open house during this time, and the enthusiasm and devotion of the British Colony remarkable. In May this year a banquet was given in honour of the Queen’s birthday, and was most brilliant. The leading members of the Colony were invited. The banqueting hall was decorated with trophies gathered from many lands, and the table (as always) beautifully arranged with flowers, and some of the many curios the Marquis possessed from Canada, Burmah, India, etc. It was part of my duty to say the Grace on these occasions. In November of the same year I received a visit from my lamented friend, Lord Plunket, late Archbishop of Dublin, and their Excellencies the Marquis and Marchioness of Dufferin and Ava honoured us by coming to meet him at dinner. The late Canon Meyrick, the Bishop of Clogher, and Père Hyacinthe Loyson were also with us. It was a gathering preliminary to a visit to Spain by Lord Plunket for the consecration of a Reformed Church in Madrid. I have said that the first public act of Lady Dufferin was to open the Bazaar on behalf of the debt on the Church, which she did in a telling little speech, which made a most favourable impression upon all present. But Her Excellency may be said to have been always before the public in Paris. She found time amid the onerous duties of the Embassy to visit the various charitable institutions, and to organize help and give advice wherever needed. I remember on one occasion she came to the meeting of the British Charitable Fund, and sat for a considerable time listening to the various tales of woe that came before us. The applications to Her Excellency from professional beggars were very numerous, but she never gave help without careful enquiry, and I was glad to be of frequent assistance to her in this matter. The Victoria Home for Aged British Women was regularly visited by Lady Dufferin and her daughters, indeed, almost every week, and Her Excellency knew all the inmates and the story of their long life in France. She had no more devoted admirers in the Colony. The Ladies Hermione and Victoria Blackwood were ever welcome, and spared neither time nor trouble to brighten and cheer their lives. Photographs of the Dufferin family hang in many of the rooms, and long after they left the old ladies would make anxious and loving enquiries about them. The Girls’ Friendly Society, as I have stated elsewhere, owes its present prosperous condition to the efforts of Lady Dufferin. [Illustration: THE MARQUIS OF DUFFERIN AND AVA.]