We had letters to Dean Stanley, to the Bishop of London, to the Bishop of Chester, and to the Bishop of Rochester, from our bishop Horatio Potter, of New York; and we had our own Mr. Motley and General Badeau, who never forgot us for a moment.
The presentations to the Queen were over for the season (it was late in June); but we did not miss them, as we had all we could do. I remember balancing my regret with the thought that I should have another day for sight-seeing. I think now, if I were to do it all over again, I should always devote the first season in London to sight-seeing, the second to society, the third to a judicious mixture of the two; for when doors are opened to one which never may be thrown open again it seems cruel and absurd to one's self to not seize the opportunity to know those who are eminent in that courtly world which so few have entered, but which is so well worth seeing.
Sir William Stirling-Maxwell was a man whose acquaintance was to be dearly prized. Charles Astor Bristed had introduced us to him, and he seemed to find no trouble too great, no kindness too elaborate, to take for us. Through him we saw all the great balls, the grand functions, excepting those of royalty. He gave us dinners himself, at which we met the choicest people in society. I remember his intellectual wife. Lady Anna Stirling-Maxwell (afterwards she met the dreadful fate of Mrs. Longfellow), and Sir Andrew and Lady Buchanan, and Lady Emily Hamilton, a beautiful woman, the sister of Lady Anna; and, better than all, the Hon. Mrs. Norton, whom I had been worshipping as an authoress since I was thirteen. She was still handsome, although she told us her age and that she had just had the scarlet-fever! The Khedive was in London — Ismail, the
