Some of
them may still want a little reform, but for the most part their wealth
is well spent.
But Mr. and Mrs. Chamberlain were not only good country hosts. Nothing
could have been more pleasant or more interesting than their London
dinners. The talk was always good and Mr. Chamberlain was always the
chief point of attraction. He was never cross, or moody, or depressed.
Instead, he was always ready to talk. You could put up any game with him
and he would fly at it with zest and spirit.
Time has not dimmed the warmth of my personal feeling either for Austen
or Neville Chamberlain. And here I want to say one word of regret in
respect of Miss Beatrice Chamberlain,--her father's eldest daughter who
died during the first year of the Peace. She was a woman of great
ability and inherited no small share of her father's power of talk and
fondness for social life. Highbury house-parties owed much to her.
CHAPTER XXV
FIVE GREAT MEN (_Continued_)
It was at one of Mr. Chamberlain's house-parties that I first met one of
the five distinguished men who made a deep impression on my mind and so
on my life. That man was Colonel John Hay, some time Ambassador of the
United States to this country.
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