Many an interesting anecdote centres around that brilliant Peking figure, Lady Bredon, Whose death was reported in yesterday's issue, and not a few demonstrated her excellent sense of humour and kindliness of disposition. But Signor Daniele Vare, well known in China as a diplomat and writer of delightful stories, tells one, in which the deceased lady appears to have been very much the victim of circumstances. In the latest of his works to hand "Laughing Diplomat," Signor Vare quotes from his diary for February 10, 1914:—
I sat next to Lady Bredon at a big Japanese dinner las} night (40 people). We talked of the dangers of life in China. She tells me that on the 29th of February of last year there were "troubles" here in Peking. The Danish Minister, Count Ahlefeldt, and a party of Englishmen bravely sallied forth from the Legation Quarter to save her from the fury of the populace (she lives in the Tartar City, east of the Hata Men). When they reached her abode, they decided it would be a good thing to consume such provisions as there were in the house, and which otherwise would have been left to the Chinese. Among the "provisions" were bottles of champagne. The rescue party drank them all After Which they forgot what they had come for and returned home without Lady Bredon, who was this time left without any provisions in the house.
Signor Vare apparently regarded the story as merely a dinner table conversation piece, for he adds the note "I must remember to ask Ahlefeldt if there be any foundation for this story!" The books does not say whether he ever did, or what reply he received, but Lady: Bredon was perfectly capable of telling story against herself, and this was one of the sort she would thoroughly enjoy.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.