MUCH PERSONAL BEAUTY AND DIS

Otago Witness, Issue 2181, 19 December 1895, Page 32

MUCH PERSONAL BEAUTY AND DIS

TINCTION, combined with an unaffected nature, shq met with a warm welcome on her entranco into society. When presented at court by her aunt, the Duchess of Buccleuch, tha Queen, quick to appreciate the beauty aud interest of the young debutante^ kissed her on both cheeks before the astonished court, exclaiming, • This is all we have left of Sir Walter.' " Suddenly ushered from a life of comparative seclusion to one of brilliance and adulation, it was remarkable that so young a head - should not have been turned. Fated and flattered, surrounded by suitors, her modesty and simplicity remained untouched. At tho end of her first season she returned to Arundel fancy-free, there unexpectedly to meet her fate. "Descending the grand Btaircase one evening, she met the Hon. Joseph Maxwell, just arrived for a week's visit. -Love at first sight is as rare as true love itself, but then and there ' BACH KNEW THE KINDRED HEART.' The charming young officer made no secret of the impression made upon hie heart ; but was called with his regiment to Gibraltar, and left with nothing decided. The following winter Miss Hope-Scott spent with tho Dowager Duchess of Norfolk in Algiers. Towards spring Mr Maxwell was brought there from Malta to convalesce from a fever, and then it was that sympathy completed what affection had begun. " The wedding took place in the private chapel of Aruudel Castle before many noble and distinguished guests, and the happy pair drove away in the white coach, drawn by four white horses, which had performed a like service for many generations of Arundol brides. Great wns the joy at Abbotsford when its charming chatelaine and her handsome young husband came into their own. Bonfires upon the hills, triumphal arches, bell-ringing, and cheers welcomed them home. THE RESERVED SCOTCH TONGUES of their tenants unbent to do them honour ; prayers were offered in all the churches, and a new reign of peace and affection began at Abbotsford. " The power of heredity is strikingly apparent in the resemblance of Mrs Mnx-wcll-Scott to he.r illustrious great-grand-father. The familiar, drooping, bine eyes of Sir Walter look out from beneath a wide, full brow, which is so like that of Chantrey's head of the great novelist that it might have served as the model. Despite the personal oversight which she gives her chiLii-en, and the social demands upon her lime and strength, she makes it a point to know every tenant on their large estates. She finds time as well for an outlet to her literary tastes. She edited the last and best edition of SIR WALTER'S DIARY, which Lockhart greatly abridged, suppressing nothing from the original and adding many interesting notes to her own. English magazines constantly publUh able articles on secular and religious matters from her pen, and not long ago Harper's Monthly also had her name among its contributors." A DOCKETS' DAIRY. "Wo doubt," says the Strand Magazine, " whether it is generally known that a fully equipped donkeys' dairy is established within a few hundred yards of the Marble Arch at Hyde Park, and which, by the way, is nearly 100 years old. On entering from a mews at the back of the premises, one stands in a longstable, wherein arc about 12 or 14 asses of eminently respectable appearance. Ecally, they resemble Mr Walter Rothschild's zebras rather than their own humble and long-suffering brethren on Hampstead Heath and elsewhere. The visitor notes with interest that a certain sweet smell pervades the place, just as though it was a cow's dairy. A wooden railing, running the whole length, forms a kind of pcu for the asses ; and at one end of this pen is a sort of reserved enclosure for a few foals, or baby donkeys, whose presence is an absolute nece3- o sity to the milch asses. VICISSITUDES OP A DONKEY'S LIFE. 11 Every one of these placid, lovable animals has been fortuitously redeemed from a lifu of appalling drudgery, and, in the ordinary course of things, will revert thereto as soon as the yield of milk has ceased. The stoical philosophy of these animals is absolutely perfeot. Upon uo other animal does maternity confer so great a boon as on the patient and much-abused ass. The wretched animal may be a mere machine ; but the moment it brings a little foal into the world, these things belong to the past, and the milch ass enters upon a glorious period of otium cum dignitate, since the life of a ducal baby may depend upon its daily yield. SUPPLYING TUB DAIRY. " Look at the ' milkers, not workers,' then think of the lot of the common or beach donkey, and you cannot fail to understand the 2ions asinorum— to an evanescent Elysium. In fact, no pauper to whom fickle Fortune's wheel has brought untold wealth was ever so much courted as the erstwhile coster's moke. Now let us get to the practical side of this curious and interesting subject. The astute middleman in London ' will purchase milch asses in the remotest parts of the kingdom ; it matters not whether the animals hail from the heights of. Hampstead, the Welsh mountains, or*the pastures of Kerry. All expenses are added to the price of the donkeys. The middleman, however, seldom pays more than 30s for a milch ass and foal (the two invariably go together) ; and he retails the pair for about thrice that sum to the proprietors of the London dairy. AN EXPENSIVE REMEDY. " Asses' milk is retailed at 6s per quart. As one might expect, the trade is practically made by fashionable physicians and trained

-■linrses, who recommend the milk in consumption cases, and for pulmonary complaints generally. Therefore, the winter season finds the" donkeys' dairy exceedingly jbnsy ; and wealthy individuals, who fly to the Riviera to escape the London fogs, actually pay lOgs for a* milch ass of their own, and take the animal with them — foal and all — so that from first to last the humble ass costs as much as a decent park hack. " Astonishing as it may seem, a special train, costing more than £20, has been chartered for the conveyance of one quart of asses' milk, in charge of the chief dairyman. It^was ordered by telegram, and was required for a dying child in Oxford. This brings us to the queer use of asses' milk, VAGARIES Off THE EICH. "One well-known and fashionable man— a member of the House of Commons— has one gill every morning, ,and his valet mixes the milk with patent blacking, in order to, impart an exquisite gloss to his master's shoes. Again, a lady who took a furnished bouse in Mount street paid 2gs a week for three years in order that a quart of asees' milk might be delivered dally. After this ! . lady had gone to New York, her discharged maid informed the proprietors of the dairy that her late mistress found asses' milk ' matchless for the hands and complexion.' In a word, the lady used the miJkin her bath. As a matter of fact, the vagaries of wealthy invalids and others who hire and buy milch asses are so extraordinary that we certainly should hesitate to believe them were it not that we have before us, as we write, piles of coroneted letters, coming from some of the most aristocratic addresses in Europe. We select a long, rambling, but wholly charming letter from the Marchioness of , who, having been informed that asses' milk is the nearest possible approach to human milk (which is perfectly true), would be ' awfully glad to know ' whether the luckless dpnkey she had bought was to be ' fed like an ordinary person.' • The ass,' wrote the noble Marchioness plaintively, 'has steadfastly refused cooked meat and sweets, yet will eat with avidity a raw carrot.' "