to the happiness of any member of her family.

How well I remember the appearance of Mr. and Mrs. Garrow, and those
two girls in my mother's drawing-room in the Via dei Malcontenti. The
two girls, I remember, were dressed exactly alike and very _dowdily_.
They had just arrived in Florence from Tours, I think, where they
had passed a year, or perhaps two, since quitting "The Braddons" at
Torquay; and everything about them from top to toe was provincial, not
to say shabby. It was a Friday, my mother's reception day, and the
room soon filled with gaily dressed and smart people, with more than
one pretty girl among them. But I had already got into conversation
with Theodosia Garrow, and, to the gross neglect of my duties as
master of the house, and to the scandal of more than one fair lady, so
I remained, till a summons more than twice repeated by her father took
her away.

It was not that I had fallen in love at first sight, as the phrase is,
by any means. But I at once felt that I had got hold of something of a
quite other calibre of intelligence from anything I had been recently
accustomed to meet with in those around me, and with a moral nature
that was sympathetic to my own. And I found it very delightful. It is
no doubt true that, had her personal appearance been other than
it was, I should not probably have found her conversation equally
delightful. But I am sure that it is equally true that had she been in
face, figure, and person all she was, and at the same time stupid, or
even not sympathetic, I should not have been equally attracted to her.

She was by no means what would have been recognised by most men as a
beautiful girl. The specialties of her appearance, in the first place,
were in a great measure due to the singular mixture of races from