Note 113 — Chapter X
Reading edition
The invitation, the ball-dress, and some remarks made in this and the preceding letter, refer to a ball annually given at Hurstbourne Park, on the anniversary of the Earl of Portsmouth's wedding-day. He was the third Lord Portsmouth, whose eccentricities afterwards became notorious, and the invitations, as well as other arrangements about these balls, were of a peculiar character. It will be remembered that he had been for a short time a pupil at Steventon Rectory (p. 21).