r and painful as
this lady's.

Mrs. Mitchell, of Carolside, was a Scotchwoman of an Aberdeen
family. She was my dear friend for many years, and a perfectly
charming person. Her face was exquisitely pretty and her figure
faultless; she had very peculiar eyes of a lightish hazel, with such
long lashes that it seemed occasionally as if her eyes were shining
through a soft haze of golden brown rays. She spoke with a slight
Scotch accent, the "winning Scottish speech" which Secretary Philips
writes of as one of Mary Stuart's peculiar charms; and she was
personally my notion of that "much blamed, much worshipped" modern
Helen. She had remarkable decision of character and force of will,
with the gentlest and most feminine appearance and manner; she was
humorous and witty, and an incomparable mimic. She was a woman of
admirably high principle and rectitude, and in every way as
attractive as she was estimable. Her eldest son was proprietor of a
charming place, Carolside, just over the Scottish border, and had
hardly come of age and inherited it when the Crimean war broke out
and compelled him, then a young officer in the army, to leave his
pleasant home prospects and encounter the threatening aspect of
"grim-visaged war." His mother, whose widowed life had been devoted
to him and his younger brother, also a soldier, fluttered after her
dear ones to the Crimea, and had the joy to get them safe back from
the "world's great snare uncaught."

Lady M---- and Mrs. Mitchell were attached and almost inseparable
friends for many years, occupying the same house in London,
travelling on the Continent together, and when in Scotland living
together at Mrs. Mitchell's pretty home, Carolside, or hiring some
house in the Highlands together. Emily de Viry (afterwards, alas!
Emily de Revel) I met again, for the first time for many years, at
Carolside. She was the daughter of our friends Mr. and Mrs. Basil
Montague, and half-sister of my kind friend Mrs. Procter, and a very
intimate friend of my sister Adelaide. She was an extremely
interesting person, the tragic close of whose life can never be
thought of without profound regret. She had married her cousin Count
Charles de Viry, and after years of widowhood she married again the
Count Adrien de Revel, Sardinian Ambassador in England, to whom she
had