When I first came to India there were a few ladies of the old school
still much looked up to in Calcutta, and among the rest the
grandmother of the Earl of Liverpool, the old Begam Johnstone, then
between seventy and eighty years of age.[4] All these old ladies
prided themselves upon keeping up old usages. They use to dine in the
afternoon at four or five o'clock--take their airing after dinner in
their carriages; and from the time they returned till ten at night
their houses were lit up in their best style and thrown open for the
reception of visitors. All who were on visiting terms came at this
time, with any strangers whom they wished to introduce, and enjoyed
each other's society; there were music and dancing for the young, and
cards for the old, when the party assembled happened to be large
enough; and a few who had been previously invited stayed supper. I
often visited the old Begam Johnstone at this hour, and met at her
house the first people in the country, for all people, including the
Governor-General himself, delighted to honour this old lady, the
widow of a Governor-General of India, and the mother-in-law of a
Prime Minister of England.
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