TEA TABLE TALK.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 3720, 4 January 1913, Page 9

TEA TABLE TALK.

The Countess of Essex was Miss Adela Grant, of New York, and is considered one of the prettiest women in Society. She was one of the most •beautiful peeresses, and was included in the notable Coronation group christened “The LoVely Five”—the other four being the Duchess of Sutherland, the Countess of Warwick, Lady Westmorland and Lady Lytton. At one time her ladyship was one of the keenest cyclists in Society; then she took to motoring. * * • Madame Sarah Grand, whose new novel has just been published, is rather absent-minded. A friend called on lier once and found her sitting with a big volume on her knee and looking much disturbed. “What is wrong?” her friend asked. “I have to write a very important letter,” the authoress replied, “and I’ve lost my pen.” “Where are you looking for it?” the' idsitor asked, smiling. Madame Grand looked first at her friend and then at the volume on her knee. “I do believe,” she faltered, “I was looking for it among the ‘P’s’ in the dictionary !” * * * The Duchess of Beaufort is one of the most interesting figures in Society. When an extremely pretty girl still in her teens she married the late Baron de Tuyell, a German gentleman, but was early widowed. Her second marriage was a romance of the hunting field. Chance took her to the Badminton district, and she rode so well and looked so smart on horseback that she at once compelled the admiration of the Duke of Beaufort (then Lord Worcester) —a bachelor, and, like her late husband, a great sportsman. They were married in 189-5. Her Grace is fond of music, has a passion for the opera, sings and plays well, and numbers many famous musicians among .her friends.

In spite of her long .success Mrs Kendal, the famous actress, does not think much of the stage as a profession for women. In her outspoken way she has said that “to succeed on the stage a woman must have the epidermis of a rhinoceros, the strength of a man, and the feelings of a graven image.” Her very first appearance on the stage was at the mature age of two. “The legend is,” she has confessed, “that I appeared as a blind child, but pvlien I got on the stage 1 forgot all about my blindness when I caugtli sight of my nurse, and called out to her, ‘Mary, do you see my new shoes.’ ” At eight years of age Miss Madge Robertson, as she was then, won apnlauee as Eva in “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” and at fifteen made n highly successful appearance as Lady Macbeth.