well
acquainted with her I have heard manifold instances of her extraordinary
character and conduct. I remember my friend Mr. Harness telling me that,
dancing with him one night at a great ball, she had suddenly amazed him
by the challenge: "Gueth how many pairth of thtockingth I have on." (Her
ladyship lisped, and her particular graciousness to Mr. Harness was the
result of Lord Byron's school intimacy with and regard for him.) Finding
her partner quite unequal to the piece of divination proposed to him,
she put forth a very pretty little foot, from which she lifted the
petticoat ankle high, lisping out, "Thixth."

I remember my mother telling me of my father and herself meeting Mr. and
Lady Caroline Lamb at a dinner at Lord Holland's, in Paris, when
accidentally the expected arrival of Lord Byron was mentioned. Mr. Lamb
had just named the next day as the one fixed for their departure; but
Lady Caroline immediately announced her intention of prolonging her
stay, which created what would be called in the French chambers
"sensation."

When the party broke up, my father and mother, who occupied apartments
in the same hotel as the Lambs,--Meurice's,--were driven into the
court-yard just as Lady Caroline's carriage had drawn up before the
staircase leading to her rooms, which were immediately opposite those of
my father and mother. A _ruisseau_ or gutter ran round the court-yard,
and intervened between the carriage step and the door of the vestibule,
and Mr. Lamb, taking Lady Caroline, as she alighted, in his arms (she
had a very pretty, slight, graceful figure), gallantly lifted her over
the wet stones; which act of conjugal courtesy elicited admiring
approval from my mother, and from my father a growl to the effect, "If
you were _my_ wife I'd put your ladyship _in_ the gutter," justified
perhaps by their observation of what followed. My mother's sitting-room
faced that of Lady Caroline, and before lights were brought into it she
and my father had the full benefit of a curious scene in the room of
their opposite neighbors, who seemed quite unmindful that their
apartment being lighted and the curtains not drawn, they were, as
regarded the opposite wing of the building, a spectacle for gods and
men.

Mr. Lamb on entering the room sat down on the sofa, and his wife perched
herself on the elbow of it with her arm round his neck, which engaging
attitude she presently exchanged for a still more persuasive one, by
kneeling at