subordinate matter, while, lo! it was cast for us by the Supernal
Powers after a more far-reaching and over-ruling fashion.

So on the 2nd of September, 1843, we turned our faces southwards and
left London for Florence.

We became immediately on arriving in Firenze la gentile (after a
little tour in Savoy, introduced as an interlude after our locomotive
rambling fashion) the guests of Lady Bulwer, who then inhabited in the
Palazzo Passerini an apartment far larger than she needed, till we
could find a lodging for ourselves.

We had become acquainted with Lady Bulwer in Paris, and a considerable
intimacy arose between her and my mother, whose nature was especially
calculated to sympathise with the good qualities which Lady Bulwer
unquestionably possessed in a high degree. She was brilliant, witty,
generous, kind, joyous, good-natured, and very handsome. But she
was wholly governed by impulse and unreasoning prejudice; though
good-natured, was not always good-humoured; was totally devoid of
prudence or judgment, and absolutely incapable of estimating men
aright. She used to think me, for instance, little short of an
admirable Crichton!

Of course all the above rehearsed good qualities were, or were
calculated to be, immediately perceived and appreciated, while the
less pleasant specialties which accompanied them were of a kind to
become more perceptible only in close intimacy. And while no intimacy
ever lessened that regard of my mother and myself that had been won by
the first, it was not long before we were both, my mother especially,
vexed by exhibitions of the second.