were on a level with my shoulder. At Hauxhurst this walk was the
strange privilege of the youngest grandchild.

A hundred years ago many sections in America were closer to
England than they are today. There was still actual kinship be-
tween families on both sides of the Atlantic. My grandfather
stayed with his cousins when he visited England; William Rose,
to whom the first canto of Marmion is dedicated, and Hugh Rose,
to whose military genius the suppression of the mutiny was largely
due. I have often gazed at the latter's statue prancing in the
Knightsbridge Road.

The tradition and cultural standards of the house were English.
So were almost all the books we read. There was a folio edition of
engravings, The Girlhood of Shakespeare's Heroines in the library.
I have never been able to shake off the belief that those typically
Victorian girls with rosebud mouths and pointed chins were ac-
tually portraits of Rosalind and Portia.

But my grandfather and all his sons and daughters were passion-
ate northerners and unionists and England's attitude during the
Civil War (my grandfather would have beaten any child that re-
ferred to it as anything but the Rebellion) had alienated their sym-
pathies completely.

Of all Alice's recollections, I like these best:

I had heard someone say flowers lived longer in the dark and I
kept a Jacqueminot rose that had been given me in a darkened
room, going in many times a day to smell it. I can still remember
that intoxicating effect. . . .

A cup and saucer of heavy china, shaded from greyish blue to
purplish pink, which I loved so much that I had a contented feeling
whenever I saw it.

Alice was a young lady of her time. Riding and driving were
a part of everyday life, and many of her friends lived for noth-
ing else. She missed this influence by a narrow margin. There
was a short period when she showed signs of becoming a
sportswoman. One of her suitors taught her to drive tandem,
a more difficult piece of horsemanship than driving four. She
rode side saddle, in a long linen habit. She had light hands
and a good seat.

The quiet, the simplicity of an ordered life, the amenities
that surrounded Alice's childhood were not present in mine.

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