in-law of whom at that time she approved. For Madame Claire not only faced facts squarely, but she had a way of seeing under and around them as well, which greatly endeared her to the more discriminating of her children and grandchildren.
It was eight years since Eric had married Louise Broughton, and eight years since Madame Claire had come to live at the Kensington Park Hotel. Her little suite was arranged with charming taste. Guests of the hotel were not encouraged to furnish their own rooms, but Madame Claire had succeeded little by little in ousting the hotel atrocities and had put in their place some favorite pieces left from the sale of the house in Prince's Gardens. Her meals were served in her sitting-room by Dawson, her elderly maid, and there too she held her little court. She had a great pity for other old ladies less fortunately placed, who were obliged to be in, yet not of, the homes of their children or grandchildren—"Always there, like pieces of furniture. Whereas," she would say, "if my family wish to see me they must come to me, and make an occasion of it."
A wonderful woman she was then at seventy-eight, with all her senses very much on the alert.
