In a letter to a friend written a year or two before
her death she said :

" I have been very happy, I spent some time in
one of my beloved counties— Dorsetshire — very near
the neighbourhood of Lady Wimborne who was to
have had our future King (Redmond) down to speak
on Bank Holiday, but of course he could not come,
but wrote to say he was sure of reconciling our dear
Dorset brethren to Home Rule. We motored every-
where and all was delightful.
" My host has a perfect thirteenth-century house and
he has carried out all the restorations perfectly. He was
sorely perplexed at having to receive Mr. Lulu Har-
court, but after a time he opened his doors to him
and Mr. Harcourt was — being a man of taste — in a
word — enchanted. ' '

She was relieved when first revisiting the village
near which she had lived as a child to find that the
venerable church had escaped restoration, and still
retained the three-decker pulpit, gallery, and old oak



A QUAINT OLD CHURCH 11

fittings of her childhood's recollection. Her old
family pew remained untouched, though Ilsington had
passed into other hands.
A few years later, however, notwithstanding protests
from my mother, her friend. Sir Frederick Treves (an
ardent lover of old Dorset), and of others, a new chancel
was added and the Walpole pew swept away.
It was in the vestry of this old church that she
found covered with dust and rubbish the Hatchment
of George Lord Orford, an eccentric ancestor noted
for his sporting tastes.
My mother had many recollections of the old-
fashioned Dorset parsons, one of whom she remem-
bered celebrating service with top boots and spurs
scarcely concealed by his surplice.
