When Lord Dufferin returned from his famous voyage in the Foam to Iceland and Spitzbergen he asked me to come up one evening to Highgate. His mother, Lady Dufferin, and her sister, the Duchess of Somerset, were there, and his cousin, Captain Hamilton. Lord Dufferin was in wonderful spirits. He wanted to hear all about the new opera, La Traviata, which had been produced that summer and asked me to play some of the music. Then I had to play his favourite Chopin nocturnes and try over some Swedish and Danish songs he had brought with him from Copenhagen.