of heaping adjectives on her nouns was characteristic of her. She also speaks " of a vulgar, blinding glare of gas pouring down on the half-asphyxiated guests."
It was in the winter of 1889, that I first made Lady Wilde's acquaintance. I had an invitation to her Saturday "At Homes," and on a dull, muggy, December day I reached the house. The hour on the card said, "From five to seven," and it was past five, when I knocked at the door. The bell was broken. The narrow hall was heaped with cloaks, waterproofs, and umbrellas, and from the door—for the reception rooms were on the ground floor—came a confusing buzz of voices. Anglo-Irish and American-Irish literary people, to say nothing of a sprinkling of brutal Saxons, were crowded as thickly together as sardines in a box. Red-shaded lamps were on the mantelpiece, red curtains veiled doors and windows, and through this darkness visible I looked vainly for the hostess. Where was she? Where was Lady Wilde? Then I saw her—a tall woman, slightly bent with rheumatism, fantastically dressed in a trained black and white checked silk gown; from her head floated long white tulle streamers, mixed with ends of scarlet ribbon. What glorious dark eyes she had! Even then, and she was over sixty, she was a strikingly handsome woman. Though I was a perfect stranger to her, she at once made
