Page:The Private Life, Lord Beaupré, The Visits (New York, Harper & Brothers, 1893).djvu/209

 THE VISITS

other day, after her death, when they were discussing her, some one said, in reference to the great number of years she had lived, the people she had seen, and the stories she knew, "What a pity no one ever took any notes of her talk!" For a London epitaph that was almost exhaustive, and the subject presently changed. One of the listeners had taken many notes, but he didn't confess it on the spot. The following story is a specimen of my exactitude—I took it down verbatim, having that faculty, the day after I heard it. I choose it, at hazard, among those of her reminiscences that I have preserved; it's not worse than the others. I will give you some of the others too—when occasion offers—so that you may judge.

I met in town that year a dear woman whom I had scarcely seen since I was a