sort of Admirable Crichton. She played the piano-forte with great skill,
and, with no special knowledge of drawing, possessed marked talent in
sketching caricatures, portraits, and scenes from nature. She composed
both the music and words of songs and romances with a felicitous ease.
She excelled in feminine works, such as embroidery, tapestry, and
dressmaking, and always modeled her own costumes. It was a saying with
her friends that she was as much the artist with her needle as with
her voice. She wrote and spoke five languages, and often used them with
different interlocutors with such readiness and accuracy that she
rarely confused them. Her wit and vivacity as a conversationalist were
celebrated, and her _mots_ had the point as well as the flash of the
diamond. Her retorts and sarcasms often wounded, but she was quick to
heal the stroke by a sweet and childlike contrition that made her doubly
fascinating.

Impassioned, ardent, the prey of an endless excitement, her restless
nature would quickly return from its flights to the every-day duties
and responsibilities of life, and her instincts were so strong and
noble that she was eager to repair any errors into which she might be
betrayed. Lavish in her generosity to others, she was personally frugal,
even penurious. A certain brusque and original frankness, and the
ingenuousness with which she betrayed every impression, often involved
her in compromising positions, which would have been fatal to a woman
in her position less pure and upright in her essential nature. Fond of
dolls, toys, and trifles, she was also devoted to athletic sports and
pastimes, riding, swimming, skating, shooting, and fencing. Sometimes
her return from a fatiguing night at the opera would be marked by an
exuberance of animal spirits, which would lead her to jump over chairs
and tables like a schoolboy. She was wont to say, "When I try to
restrain my flow of spirits, I feel as if I should be suffocated." Her