st comedy of
all, perhaps, was that of her own generous whimsicalities. She was
superbly willing to amuse, and on any terms; and her temper could do
it as well as her wit. If either of these had failed, her
eccentricities were always there. She had more 'habits' than most
people have room in life for, and a theory that to a person of her
disposition they were as necessary as the close meshes of a strait-
waistcoat. If she had not lived by rule (on her showing) she would
have lived infallibly by riot. Her rules and her riots, her
reservations and her concessions, all her luxuriant theory and all her
extravagant practice; her drollery, that mocked at her melancholy; her
imagination, that mocked at her drollery; and her wonderful manners,
all her own, that mocked a little at everything: these were part of
the constant freshness which made those who loved her love her so
much. 'If my servants can live with me a week, they can live with me
for ever,' she often said; 'but the first week sometimes kills them.'
A domestic who had been long in her service quitted his foreign home
the instant he heard of her death, and, travelling for thirty hours,
arrived travel-stained and breathless, like a messenger in a romantic
tale, just in time to drop a handful of flowers into her grave."

There came on board of our boat a fruit-dealer, and the old pilot, seeing
that I was about to invest a _real_ in grapes, said, "Let me buy them for
you"; which he did, obtaining half-a-peck of exquisite large grapes of a
beautiful purple colour.

There was a middle-aged lady among the passengers, of whom the least I
can say was, that she had a great many little winning ways of making
herself disagreeable. She imposed frightfully on me while on board,
getting me to mark her trunks for her, and carry them into the hold, &c.
(the sailors disliked her so much that they refused to touch them), and
then cut me dead when on shore. This ancient horror, seeing me with so
many grapes, and learning the price, concluded that if a mere boy like me
could get so many, she, a lady, could for four reals lay in a stock which
would last for life, more or less. So she obtained a bushel-basket,
expecting to get it heaped full; but what was her wrath at only getting
for her silver half-dollar just enough to hide the bottom thereof! Great
was her rage, but rage availed her nought. She did not call old pilots