'One of the most agreeable parties of clever people to which I ever went was a luncheon given by Mrs. Stewart, when she was living a few doors from me in my street, at which I was the only man, the party chiefly consisting of old ladies; indeed, I was by far the youngest person present. Besides Mrs. Stewart herself, there were friends, Lady Hamilton Gordon, Lady Pollock, Lady Hopetoun, Mrs. Frank Hill, Mrs. Oliphant, and Mrs. Lynn Linton--Lady Gordon, a remarkably able woman, one of the bedchamber women of the Queen and a great gossip; Lady Pollock, slow, but full of theatrical anecdote, being stage-mad, as was her husband, old Sir Frederick, the Queen's Remembrancer, father of my Cambridge friend Professor Pollock (now Sir Frederick) and of Walter Pollock, the editor of the _Saturday Review_. A few days later I met Lady Pollock at a great party given by Lord Houghton. Irving was coming down the stairs, at the bottom of which we stood, having Mrs. Singleton (now, 1894, the Ambassadress, Lady Currie) upon his arm. Old Lady Pollock, clutching at my arm, exclaimed: "Who is that woman with Irving?" To which I answered: "Mrs. Singleton, author of _Denzil Place_--Violet Fane." "She won't do him any harm, will she?" was the embarrassing question by which Lady Pollock replied to me.' In this summer Sir Charles gave dinner-parties which included ladies--'a plan which I found so uncomfortable for a politician who had only a grandmother to entertain them that I dropped it after August, 1876.' His dinners were always among the pleasantest in London, but till 1886 they were only dinners of men. Of men friends of this year he specially notes 'Gennadius, the Greek Secretary, afterwards Minister,' with whom his friendship was lifelong. APPENDIX A meeting was held at Devonshire House on March 1st, 1877: