" Socially she is very popular, and her exceeding
kindness and benevolence, with her strongly national feeling as an
Hawaiian, make her much beloved by the natives.
The winter palace, as her town house is called, is a large shady
abode, like an old-fashioned New England house externally, but with
two deep verandahs, and the entrance is on the upper one. The lower
floor seemed given up to attendants and offices, and a native woman
was ironing clothes under a tree. Upstairs, the house is like a
tasteful English country house, with a pleasant English look, as if
its furniture and ornaments had been gradually accumulating during a
series of years, and possessed individual histories and
reminiscences, rather than as if they had been ordered together as
"plenishings" from stores. Indeed, it is the most English-looking
house I have seen since I left home, except Bishopscourt at
Melbourne. If there were a bell I did not see it; and we did not
ring, for the queen received us at the door of the drawing-room,
which was open. I had seen her before in European dress, driving a
pair of showy black horses in a stylish English phaeton; but on this
occasion she was not receiving visitors formally, and was indulging
in wearing the native holuku, and her black wavy hair was left to
its own devices.
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