And not any girl either, but the one (in a photo dating from 2003) who presides in spirit over everything that happens at Spencer Alley. She visits maybe once a month, usually for a purpose, usually for fittings for a dress or a skirt that is being made for her here in the top-floor flat in the yellow building at the end of the alley. She breezes in, dropping parcels and issuing kisses, eventually pausing long enough to let herself be pinned into the garment of the day. Then for a moment, in front of the tallest mirror in the biggest room, we gaze. We mumble. We consult. The pins get moved, the chalk comes out. I tell her the story I have been reading in Tina Brown's Diana Chronicles about the fittings with David and Elizabeth Emanuel for the most famous wedding dress of the 20th century, and how Diana's waistline measured 29 inches at the first fitting but ended up at 23 1/2 inches by the time she walked down the central aisle at St. Paul's Cathedral.