A Bronx tale: Diana and the ultimate photo opportunity

As Diana, Princess of Wales, continued her visit to the eastern United States yesterday, her schedule looked more and more like a tour of the great and the wise of the world's women.

And we are not talking about her meetings either with Barbara Walters, the ABC TV anchor-cum-icon, on Monday night, or her joint pitch in Washington on Tuesday for a ban on landmines with Elizabeth Dole, wife of the defeated presidential candidate Bob Dole.

More remarkable were her appointments, both kept strictly private, in the course of yesterday. It began with a visit to the White House and an hour's discussion with the First Lady, Hillary Clinton, and ended in a different environment entirely - at the bedside of Mother Teresa in an unsalubrious corner of the Bronx district in New York.

Officially, Mother Teresa (whose home is normally Calcutta) is in the Bronx to offer spiritual assistance to the large numbers of poor and dejected in the borough. Seriously ill, however, the world's most revered num is believed to be resting at a clinic run by her order, the Missionaries of Charity.

"She will be looking forward to Princess Diana's visit," remarked Kathryn Spink, the author of an authorised biography of the 86-year-old. "She always welcomes Christ in everyone".

Any among the snapping paparazzi, meanwhile, who were not straining for that priceless shot of Mother Teresa and Diana together, may have been a couple of miles to the south at the US headquarters of Christie's auction house, where a first preview was being held yesterday of the 79 of the Princess's dresses that will go under the hammer in a charity sale next Wednesday.