A debutante's diary: The first week of London life

WEEK TWO

Saturday June 27th, 1868

Well, I have had a week of this London life, and up to the present I am not disappointed, it is all very new and strange but on the whole I like it. Sunday we went to the Zoological Gardens, and excited considerably more interest than the animals with our Parisienne toilettes and Parisienne good looks.

May Manners Sutton, one of the richest and naughtiest of London Grand Dames, is out great card here; she is rather jealous of Mother, who was guilty of the enormous indiscretion of putting her into the shade at Lords the other day, but I am with her constantly, as she imagines I draw the men, and don't take possession of them when they arrive.

Cocky [Lord Lansdowne], who appreciated out company in Paris, called three times this week; I had the back luck to be at May's the first two visits, but the third time he came by appointment, asked in an innocent manner if Mother was in, when he knew perfectly well she was out having spoken to her in Berkeley Square: came up the stairs and sat and stared at me for two mortal hours, saying nothing which admitted of the faintest pleasant constructionI don't the least dispute that in my cool white muslin and lace and profusion of pink ribbons, I was quite entitled to all the attention he gave me, but I still think he might have talked a little at the same time, and not left all the conversation to me, which in this tropical heat is too much of an exertion.

Next week: having a ball

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