"Papa is quizzing the Baronets," added Florence, "who are not wise ones. Provided you come, I care for nobody, no not I, and shall be quite satisfied. As M. de Something said to the Staël, 'Nous aurons à nous deux de l'esprit pour quarante; vous pour quatre et moi pour zéro.'" There were return invitations to great houses, and occasionally Florence retails their gossip, or her own reflections, for the benefit of cousins or aunts:-- (_To Miss Hilary Bonham Carter._) 1845 (or early '46). What is the secret of Lady Jocelyn's sublime placidity? I never saw anything so lovely as she is, and she has lived four-and-twenty years of more excitement, I suppose, than ever fell to anybody's lot but an actress, all the young peerage having proposed to her. What gives her such a fullness of life now and makes her find enough in herself? It is not that she talks to Lord Palmerston or Lord Jocelyn, for she never does; and though she is very fond of her baby, she told me herself she did not care to play with it. Perhaps you will say it is want of earnestness, but, good gracious, my dear, if earnestness breaks one heart, who is fulfilling most the Creation's end--she who is breaking her heart, or this woman who has kept her serenity in the midst of excitement and her simplicity in unbounded admiration? The Palmerstons are certainly the most good-natured people under the stars to their guests. We have been since to Sir William Heathcote's to meet the Ashburtons. I wish you had been there for the sake of the pictures, and also for the sake of the artistical dinner which, even I became aware, was such a dinner and such plate as has seldom blessed my housekeeping eyes. The Palmerstons, too, have had down all their pictures from London--such a Rembrandt, Pilate washing his hands. Lord Ashburton does not look much like a settler of a Boundary question.[22] She is an American, and we swore eternal friendship upon Boston; I having, you know, much curious information to give _her_ upon that city and its inhabitants. She had a raspberry-tart of diamonds upon her forehead worth seeing. Then Mesmerism, and when we parted, we had got up so high into _Vestiges_[23] that I could not get down again, and was obliged to go off as an angel. The Ashburtons were the only people asked to meet the Queen at Strathfieldsaye (of her society). It was the most entire crash ever heard of, and the not asking the Palmerstons considered almost a personal insult; but they say the old Duke now cares for nothing but flattery, and asks nobody but masters of hounds. He almost ill-treated the Speaker. After dinner, they all stood at ease about the drawing-room, and behaved like so many soldiers on parade. The Queen did her very best to enliven the gloom, but was at last