Nor were Lady Harrington's impromptu evening assemblies less celebrated than her perpetual tea-drinkings at Harrington House. The superior quality of this expensive beverage in which the family of Stanhope indulged there, and the frequency with which Lady Harrington presented it to her visitors at all hours of the day, gave rise to the saying that where you saw a Stanhope, there you saw a tea-pot. A story current in town was that when her son, General Lincoln Stanhope, returned home after a prolonged absence in India, he found the family party precisely as he had left them many years before, seated in the long gallery sipping their favourite refreshment. On his entry, his father looked up from this absorbing occupation, and, with a restraint indicative of the highest breeding, gave voice to the characteristic greeting--"Hullo! Linky, my dear boy, you are just in time for a cup of tea!" Such a home was the very atmosphere in which to develop a fashionable man of the period; and the eldest son of the House, Charles. Lord Petersham, did not discredit his surroundings. Tall, handsome, and faultlessly clad, he was one of the most celebrated dandies of his day. Decidedly affected in his manners, he spoke with a slight lisp; and since he was said to recall the pictures of Henri IV., he endeavoured to accentuate this likeness by cultivating a pointed beard. He never went out till six in the evening, and one of his hobbies indoors was the strenuous manufacture of a particular sort of blacking which, he always maintained, once perfected, would surpass every other. His sitting-room emphasized his eccentricity. One side of it represented the family _penchant_, being covered with shelves upon which were placed canisters containing the most expensive and perfect kinds of tea. On the other, in beautiful jars, reposed an equally choice and varied assortment of snuffs. Lord Petersham's snuff-boxes and his canes were alike celebrated; indeed, his collection of the former was said to be the finest in England, and he was reported to have a fresh box for every day in the year. Thus Gronow relates that once when a light Sevres box which he was using, was admired, Lord Petersham responded with a gentle lisp--"Yes, it is a nice summer box--but would certainly be inappropriate for winter wear!"