Lady Jekyll, and niece of Lady Horner.] took in my son Anthony. No
one has had such wonderful friends as I have had, but no one has
suffered more at discovering the instability of human beings and
how little power to love many people possess.

Few men and women surrender their wills; and it is considered
lowering to their dignity to own that they are in the wrong. I
never get over my amazement at this kind of self-value, it passes
all my comprehension. It is vanity and this fundamental lack of
humbleness that is the bed-rock of nearly every quarrel.

It was through my beloved Lady Wemyss that I first met the Master
of Balliol. One evening in 1888, after the men had come in from
shooting, we were having tea in the large marble hall at Gosford.
[Footnote: Gosford is the Earl of Wemyss' country place and is
situated between Edinburgh and North Berwick.] I generally wore an
accordion skirt at tea, as Lord Wemyss liked me to dance to him.
Some one was playing the piano and I was improvising in and out of
the chairs, when, in the act of making a final curtsey, I caught
my foot in my skirt and fell at the feet of an old clergyman
seated in the window. As I got up, a loud "Damn!" resounded
through the room. Recovering my presence of mind, I said, looking
up:

"You are a clergyman and I am afraid I have shocked you!"

"Not at all," he replied. "I hope you will go on; I like your
dancing extremely."

I provoked much amusement by asking the family afterwards if the