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ssss1.Alas! to say, Alfred Montgomery—most genial of critics as of playmates—died in 1896.

ssss1.Jane Georgina, daughter of Thomas Sheridan, married, in 1830, Edward, twelfth Duke of Somerset, and died in 1884. As Lady St Maur she was the “Queen of Beauty” at the Eglinton tournament in 1839.

It was in the cloisters, coming out of chapel, that I first saw, in a little brown frock, the future Governor-General of Canada and Viceroy of India, now (1888) the Marquis of Dufferin and Ava, and since that time every day of our re-meeting has been marked with a red-letter in my calendar.

QUEEN MARY’S GARDEN

What a difference between the Hampton Court of those and these days. In the gardens, when I first remember them, the beds were decked with the sickly Michaelmas Daisy, and the flaunting Golden Rod, which made unsightly and straggling borders—a pitiable contrast to the perfumed and variegated flora of the present day. Yet I confess to a lingering regret for the rich clusters of the Lilac, mingling with the golden drop of the Laburnum, which then showed from out the gloomy, fantastic yews, and made a charming group in early Spring. Queen Mary’s, or the Private Garden, as it used to be called, now scarcely deserves that name, when crowds of holiday folk flock to see the celebrated vine.