[Venice—Friday, 8 November 1889]
As R.B. said, this lovely day would be better spent at Lido than in the rooms of Princess of Montenegro– We were booked, however, and at 5 we called at Pal. Rezo for Mr & Miss Browning and rowed to Palo Molin ai Frari. Her salon is hung with family portraits of Montenegrin Altesses, in costumes and armed, ladies in jackets laced, ‘expressed in fancy.’ One is always seated in a circle around a small table with a bright lamp in one’s eyes at a yard’s distance. The whole family of Montalba, Miss Leigh-Smith, Miss Blythe, Prince Gargarin, and some ladies I did not know, & ourselves the Company. Stayed an hour, and set Brownings down– Went to see the moon rise from S. Giorgio.
