As, for instance:--Lady Bulwer had for some days been complaining of
feeling unwell, and was evidently suffering. My mother urged her to
have some medical advice, whereupon she turned on her very angrily,
while the tears started to her beautiful eyes, and said, "How _can_
you tell me to do any such thing, when you know that I have not a
guinea for the purpose?" (She was frequently wont to complain of her
poverty.) But she had hardly got the words out of her mouth when the
servant entered the room saying that the silversmith was at the door
asking that the account which he laid on the table might be paid. The
account (which Lady Bulwer made no attempt to conceal, for concealment
of anything was not at all in her line) was for a pair of small silver
spurs and an ornamented silver collar which she had ordered a week or
two previously for the _ceremonial knighting of her little dog Taffy_!

On another occasion a large party of us were to visit the Boboli
Gardens. It was a very hot day, and we had to climb the hill to the
upper part of the gardens, from whence the view over Florence and the
Val d'Arno is a charming one. But the hill, as those who have been at
Florence will not have forgotten, is not only an extremely steep, but
a shadeless one. The broad path runs between two wide margins of
turf, which are enclosed on either side by thick but not very high
shrubberies. The party sorted themselves into couples, and the men
addressed themselves to facilitating as best they might the not
slightly fatiguing work before the ladies. It fell to my lot to give
Lady Bulwer my arm. Before long we were the last and most lagging
couple on the path. It was hard work, but I did my best, and flattered
myself that my companion, despite the radical moisture which she was
copiously losing, was in high good humour, as indeed she seemed to be,
when suddenly, without a word of warning, she dashed from the path,