Mr. Yates was kind to us, first for Uncle Sam’s sake, then for our own. He was unwearied in arranging entertainments where we might meet the literary lights of the day. A dinner at the Star and Garter, at Richmond, where for the first time I tasted whitebait, is a clear memory. We drove down from London on a coach and four through beautiful Richmond Park, whose noble oaks are among the finest I have ever seen. We had a private dining room opening on the terrace, with the famous view over the Thames. Mallock, author of the “New Republic”, one of the books of the year, was the most brilliant of the witty party, and the lovely Violet Fane kept pace with him. William Black, who was among the guests, was very silent that night, but looked interesting. “I wish to propose the health of the United States!” said the host, bowing to my mother. The company rose to drink the toast. “Yates ought to like your country,” said Louis Jennings, my neighbor at table; “he earned the thirty thousand pounds with which he bought the _World_, on a lecture tour in the States!” Mr. Yates had made some success as a novelist, but his real talent was journalistic. As long as he lived the _World_ was sent to us, and my mother never failed to read it, sometimes crying out as she laid the paper down, “It makes me homesick for London!” Among the friends of other days was Lord Houghton (Monckton Milnes), whom my mother had known on her first visit to England in 1844. He then ranked as one of the notable minor poets, though I do not often hear his poetry spoken of to-day. I have a volume of his, published in 1838. It has a certain old-fashioned charm and brings back the marked personality of the old gentleman whom we met frequently at dinners and even balls, though he was past eighty years old.