“Then I asked her of her past. She said she had been the daughter of a planter in Havannah, but her fine voice induced her, against the will of her family, early to take to a public life. At the Exhibition of 1851 she (as Mademoiselle Mori) sang the anthem of which Jenny Lind sang one verse. She afterwards became a sculptress, and studied under Gibson at Rome (and she described his peculiar studio accurately). She was his only female pupil, and had the charge of his studio. He taught her his mode of colouring marble, and in her statue of ‘Waiting for the Spring,’ she used it in colouring the primroses and violets in a girl’s lap. The Queen bought this statue in the Exhibition building of 1862 before the Exhibition opened. Then she married Mr. L. and went to Paris.
“‘While I was in Paris,’ she said, ‘a very curious thing happened to me. I gave birth to three boys at once. When such an event occurs in France, the sovereigns are always god-parents, and the Emperor and Empress were pleased to have the christening of my three boys in Notre Dame, where they stood sponsors at the font.’—‘And are the boys all dead?’ I said. ‘Oh, dear no, they are all alive.’—‘Then where in the world are they?’ I said. ‘Oh, they live with the Empress: she would not part with them, and my three boys are her little pages. Now they are gone with her into Spain to see her mother.’
“She then described how the Empress often sent her money to go down to Chislehurst to see her boys, and how the Prince Imperial often called to see her, and called her ‘Grannie’ because of the boys, or left her a £10 note. ‘I should have gone at once to the Empress had she been in England,’ said Mrs. L., ‘but I would have died rather than have begged from any one: I would have died on a doorstep.’—‘Then what made you confide in me?’ I asked. ‘Oh, surely you must see that,’ she replied. ‘Of course you must see that. It was the likeness. Of course people must have told you of the great, the wonderful likeness before. I was quite prepared for death, I had made up my mind to die, and then God in His great mercy sent the likeness of my Emperor to me; and I knew then that God did not mean me to die yet.’
“She wants to paint a picture in memory of what she calls my ‘saving her.’[265]
“On the 18th, I had an interesting visit to Apsley House, for which the Duke had sent me the following order:—‘Admit Mr. Hare to see Apsley House on any day on which the street outside is dry.’ The street was quite dry, and, moreover, I went in a cab and arrived perfectly spick and span; but the servant laughed as he produced a pair of huge list slippers to go on over my boots, before I was allowed to go into any of the rooms. ‘His Grace left these himself, and desired you should wear them when you came.’ Yet the floors of Apsley House are not even polished.
“On the 19th I went to Lady Ducie’s, to see the Macdonald family act the Pilgrim’s Progress. They go through the whole of the second part, George Macdonald,[266] his wife, his twelve children, and two adopted children. Christiana (the eldest daughter) was the only one who acted well. Nevertheless, the whole effect was touching, and the audience cried most sympathetically as Christiana embraced her children to go over the great river.
“On the 21st there was a delightful party at Holland House to meet the Prince of Wales, and on Wednesday I was thankful to come home.
“Never has little Holmhurst been pleasanter than this year, and I have so enjoyed being alone, the repose of the intense quietude, the radiance of the flowers, the delicious sea-breezes through windows open to the ground, the tame doves flitting and cooing in the branches of the tall lime-tree.”
To Miss Wright.
“August 6, 1877.—I came home on Wednesday week, and have been alone ever since, and over head and ears in work. I have seen nobody except last Tuesday, when, though I thought no one knew I was at home, fourteen afternooners appeared. Miss Hamilton, who has taken a fancy to do my portrait, has done it very cleverly against a window, with ivy hanging down outside, only it is a sentimental suggestion of