As I grew up, this teasing, jolly, insouciant Irish father of mine was
relieved of some of his paternal duties by Tom Taylor. It was not Nelly
alone whom Tom Taylor fathered. He adopted the whole family.

At Lavender Sweep, with the horse-chestnut blossoms strewing the drive
and making it look like a tessellated pavement, all of us were always
welcome, and Tom Taylor would often come to our house and ask mother to
grill him a bone! Such intimate friendships are seldom possible in our
busy profession, and there was never another Tom Taylor in my life.

When we were not in London and could not go to Lavender Sweep to see
him, he wrote almost daily to us. He was angry when other people
criticised me, but he did not spare criticism himself.

"Don't be Nelly Know-all," I remember his saying once. "_I_ saw you
floundering out of your depth to-night on the subject of butterflies!
The man to whom you were talking is one of the greatest entomologists in
Europe, and must have seen through you at once."

When William Black's "Madcap Violet" was published, common report said
that the heroine had been drawn for Ellen Terry, and some of the reviews
made Taylor furious.

"It's disgraceful! I shall deny it. Never will I let it be said of you
that you could conceive any vulgarity. I shall write and contradict it.
Indiscreet, high-spirited, full of surprises, you may be, but
vulgar--never! I shall write at once."

"Don't do that," I said. "Can't you see that the author hasn't described
me, but only me in 'New Men and Old Acres'?" As this was Tom Taylor's