ITEMS OF SOCIAL NEWS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume L, Issue 15482, 13 December 1913, Page 6 (Supplement)

ITEMS OF SOCIAL NEWS.

[FltOM the SOCIETT papers.] Driu.vt; a temporary absence of the Duchess of Devonshire from England, Lady Airlie acted as Mistress of the Robes. She is an old friend of the household and has been an intimate of Queen Mary's since she first became Princess of Wales. There is no more striking figure in the Royal entourage than this stately widowed lady with her mass of white hair, which is so ricluresquely dressed and generally surmounted by a big black hat. Notwithstanding her white hair she looks extraordinarily young to be the mother of married daughters and a son who will celebrate his majority in a year's time. Viscount Laseelles, who was the Unionist candidate for Keighley division of YoiSshire, in the recent by-election, is the eldest son of the Earl and Countess of Harewood. He was in the Grenadier Guards, and is lion, attache in the Diplomatic Service, lie is 31, and is a clever and looking man, vastly popular in the neighbourhood of Harewood House and Goklsborough. Ho is, on his mother's side, nephew to the Earl of Bradford. Members of his family have rendered splendid services to the country. His only sister is Viscountess Boyne. Lord Lascelles lias travelled a great deal, and is a keen observer of men and matters. Lord Harewood is a very quiet, retiring man. He was in the Grenadier Guards, and was A.D.C. to the Earl of Mayo, the Viceroy of India, who was murdered in the Andaman Islands.

Princess Marguerite of Denmark, the only daughter of Prince Waldomar, is a ■ great favourite with tier aunt, Queen Alexandra, and will, it is said, pay Her Majesty a visit next spring. She was 18 in Deoember, and is said to possess in a marked degree the gift of charm. Her mother, Princess .Maria of Orleans, was a favourite sister-in-law of Queen Alexandra; she died nearly four years ago, to the great grief of all who knew her. Princess Marguerite is very good-looking and clever. According to settlement she has been brought up in her mother's faith, Roman Catholicism; her brothers, who adore her, are. like their father, Lutherans. She is rather a lonely Princess as regards girl friends, as her cousins, Princesses i'hyra and Dagmar, are older; the latter, only - five years her senior, is her best friend, She lives with her father and brothers at the Castle of Bernstorff, near Gentofte, where Queen Alexandra and the Empress Marie of Russia visited frequently during their recent stay in Denmark.

Princess Victoria has been very keenly interested in the development of "Princess Mary as a horsewoman. The Queen has no sympathies in that direction with her daughter, as she has never cared to ride, and, regards horses with a certain nervousness which might convey itself to them did she try. The young Princess loves them, and wishes to ride, drive, and hunt well. In all these aspirations her aunt is with her, and tho King is delighted that she, should ride and drive with Princess Victoria. Prince Olaf is also very keen to lie a fine horseman, and that Queen Alexandra has a wonderful pony for him' in, her. stables. He is a great joy to : her, and is a wonderfully bright, intelligent lad, now in his 11th year. He is fall of fun, .and is like a human note of interrogation, lie wants to know so marly things. He has a quaint way of advancing opinions on matters of great importance, which has come to him through being so much with his elders, but he has lost nothing of his boyish charm. . '' ' '. ;

One ■of the most notable weddings in October; apart j from that - of Prince Arthur of Ccnnaiight, was that of Lord Combermere to Miss Hazel Agnew. .The bridegroom, a nephew of Lady Alexander Paget, is only twenty-six, - : but lias held the title, ; which •he gets from a famous general of the Peninsular War, for fifteen • years. ' The first viscount was awarded a '; pension of £2000 a year for three lives, 1 but that expired with the late peer. The family seat in Cheshire, dating back to Henry VIII., nestles picturesquely amid a large and well-wooded estate; It holds memories of the Empress of Austria of tragic destiny, who once took it for a term. Miss Agnew is related to that very old Scottish family, the Agnews of Lochnaw, and on her mother's side sheis of royal descent in the direct line, being a great-granddaughter of King William IV. Her mother, now Mrs. Edmund Charrington, is the daughter if Lord Augustus Fitzclarence, who was the son of King William IV. and Mrs. Jordan —an alliance which though morganatic is nowadays, of course, absolutely unimpeachable from the descendant's point < f view.

■ Lord and Lady Hyde and Lord Somers, Lady Hyde's brother, are returning from Canada to spend the'winter in England. They have been in the Dominion for several months, and like the life—farming in Ontario—out there immensely. Lord Hyde is the Earl of Clarendon's only son, and isa fine-charactered, purposeful man, .and a-favourite with everyone. Hi 3 only sister is 'Viscountess Vallefort; her husband, is an only son. His cousin, Miss Katharine Villiers, goes out as Lady-in-Waiting on Princess Patricia of Connaught, to whom sho has been "lent" by the Queen, as she is one of Her Majesty's Maids of Honour. She is the elder of the two daughters of the late Colonel the Hon.' George Hyde, the Earl of Clarendon's brother. Lord and Lady Hyde wili be very warmly welcomed honis. Lord Somers was in the Ist Lite Guards, but went out to Canada to join his only sister and brother-in-law. He is 26 and unmarried, and his heir-presumptive is his undo, the .Rev. Homy Lawrence Somers, vicar of Edenbridge. Kent. Lord Somers's grandfather on his mother's side, Major Clogstoun, was a V.C. hero. His mother died many years ago, as did his father. The Countess of Dudley, who is a kinswoman of the orphaned brother and sister, has always been very kind to them. Lady Hyde was married from her house.