ts mimicry of babyhood to me, and I had a nervous
dislike, not unmixed with fear, of the smiling simulacra that girls are
all supposed to love with a species of prophetic maternal instinct.

The only member of my aunt Twiss's family of whom I remember at this
time little or nothing was the eldest son, Horace, who in subsequent
years was one of the most intimate and familiar friends of my father and
mother, and who became well known as a clever and successful public man,
and a brilliant and agreeable member of the London society of his day.

My stay of a little more than a year at Bath had but one memorable
event, in its course, to me. I was looking one evening, at bedtime, over
the banisters, from the upper story into the hall below, with tiptoe
eagerness that caused me to overbalance myself and turn over the rail,
to which I clung on the wrong side, suspended, like Victor Hugo's
miserable priest to the gutter of Notre Dame, and then fell four stories
down on the stone pavement of the hall. I was not killed, or apparently
injured, but whether I was not really irreparably damaged no human being
can possibly tell.

My next memories refer to a residence which my parents were occupying
when I returned to London, called Covent Garden Chambers, now, I
believe, celebrated as "Evans's," and where, I am told, it is
confidently affirmed that I was born, which I was not; and where, I am
told, a picture is shown that is confidently affirmed to be mine, which
it is not. My sister Adelaide was born in Covent Garden Chambers, and
the picture in question is an oil sketch, by Sir Thomas Lawrence, of my
cousin Maria Siddons; quite near the truth enough for history, private
or public. It was while we were living here that Mrs. Siddons returned
to the stage for one night, and acted Lady Randolph for my father's
benefit. Of course I heard much discourse about this, to us, important
and exciting event, and used all my small powers of persuasion to be
taken to see her.

My father, who loved me very much, and spoiled me not a little, carried
me early in the afternoon into the market-place, and showed me the dense
mass of people which filled the whole Piazza, in patient expectation of
admission to the still unopened doors. This was by way of proving to me
how impossible it was to grant my request. However that might then
appear, it was granted, for I was in the theatre at the beginning of the
performance; but I can now remember nothing of it