She wrote several plays, concerning one of which, _The Humorous Lovers_, Pepys tells us that although he would rather not have seen it, since it was so sickeningly silly, yet he was glad, because he could understand her better afterwards. At the end of the first performance, as a queen of breeding, she stood up in her box and made her respects to the actors. In those days of better fortunes the quaintly assorted couple spent much time in the country houses of Welbeck and Bolsover. The duke's income was very large, being equal to at least L200,000 of our money, and, since both had rural tastes, it is probable that they were far happier in Nottinghamshire than in their fine town mansion in Clerkenwell Close. Welbeck she admired most, since it was seated "in the bottom of a park environed with woods, and noble, yet melancholy". One wonders if the ghost of this "wise, wittie and learned lady" wanders in those beautiful and amazing precincts, a little bewildered and more than a little angry that any of her beloved spouse's descendants should have dared to enlarge and embellish the comfortable temple of their conjugal felicity. If she could have had her will, his works in architecture, like hers in the realms of smoky fancy, would have lasted until the end of time. CLUMBER The most impressive approach to Clumber is by way of Normanton Inn, a red-brick hostelry draped luxuriantly with virginia creeper. At some slight distance is a magnificent glade of varied greens, with great patches of blood-coloured bent-grass. In the neighbourhood grow many fine Spanish chestnuts; when I was last there the ground was littered with the fallen flowers. A vast, festooned cloud, grey as the smoke of some monstrous fire, drifted from the east; then lightning sported wickedly amongst the trees, and the rain fell in torrents. Beside the balustraded bridge the water seemed covered with an army of white puppets. But it was at the entrance to the Lime Tree Avenue that I looked upon the greatest wonder of the day. Behind the shifting veil the view of that curving road seemed as fantastically unreal as the background of some ancient Italian masterpiece.