05Sep1881, A Yankee Miss Who Knew F.

BOLTON ABBEY, September 5th-10th, 1881.
—One day F. and I went to Keighley for a Church stone-laying he had to do for Mr. Longsdon, the Vicar: we had a sumptuous tea afterwards in a gorgeous Louix XV palace, outrageously inappropriate to its surroundings, entertained by Mr. ____, the owner, who, being a Yorkshire manufacturer, gets himself up as a French buck. Wonderfully he aired his villa at Nice and his "little coterie" of Comtesses and Duchesses there. The event of the day, however, was the meeting between F. and a certain Yankee Miss _____, a showy old-young lady much painted, who turned out to be no other than "Philadelphia," so called because he never could remember her name, but about whom I used to chaff him. They were acquainted when he was in America with Evelyn Ashley and Dick Grosvenor, 22 years ago; the fair creature tried to make out that it was 20 years ago and that she was then only 14; but no: she has probably nearly reached my mature age. We were introduced to her aged Mamma in a flaxen wig, rather like Mrs. Skewton. What they are doing at Mr. _____'s I can't quite make out, but I suppose Miss will end by accepting his heart and hand and the villa at Nice and the "little coterie" and all.