Note 318 — Chapter XIV · A HOPEFUL YEAR.

It may be interesting to record that the most brilliant Queen of Society in the Victorian period was a hard-working, thrifty house-manager. During her reign she managed personally not only the sumptuous hospitalities, but the accounts of Cambridge House, Brocket Hall, and Broadlands, and kept Palmerston’s private affairs in admirable order. Even her visiting cards were filled up by her own hand till within a very few years of her death. There was one other trace of old-fashionedness about her. She was the last lady of quality who pronounced the word oblige as if it were spelt “obleege.”