SIR HARRY AND LADY SMITH.
pro THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."] Sin,—The very sympathetic account of Sir Harry Smith in the Spectator of December 21st recalls to me an anecdote about Lady Smith which may amuse your readers. In my early youth my father and I met the distinguished couple at Combermere. Lady Smith was very witty and lively ; but she looked prematurely old, and, according to an English standard, she was far too stout.. Like a true Spaniard, however, she was proud of being fat. , Indeed, she challenged my father to a weighing match. He readily acceded, knowing all the time that the questionable advantage of the victory would be hers. That victory was complete,—more complete, indeed, than she had expected or than she liked. The fact was that, contrary to his wont, my father had been mischievous. While Lady Smith was being weighed he slyly placed himself behind her and leant on the machine. At last, as she saw weight after weight thrown into the opposite scale, she was thoroughly startled. But before she had begun to be seriously alarmed, my father made a full confession of his practical joke,—the only such joke, I verily believe, that he ever played off on a lady. My wife, then a child, met the venerable Sir Harry and his wife when they were visiting her parents; and she well remembers Lady Smith's skill in playing the castanets. Never did either of us dream that in after years the friendly old lady would acquire a shadowy and vicarious reputation in connection with the heroic defence of a town which-
" Ab ilia Dicitur, aeternumque tenet per secula nomen."
—I am, Sir, &c., LIONEL A. TOLLEXACHE. HO'tel d'Angleterre, Biarritz.
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