ccasionally to convulse her friends _en petit comite_
with a certain absurd song called "The Widow," to all intents and
purposes a piece of broad comedy, the whole story of which (the wooing
of a disconsolate widow by a rich lover, whom she first rejects and then
accepts) was comprised in a few words, rather spoken than sung, eked out
by a ludicrous burden of "rum-ti-iddy-iddy-iddy-ido," which, by dint of
her countenance and voice, conveyed all the alternations of the widow's
first despair, her lover's fiery declaration, her virtuous indignation
and wrathful rejection of him, his cool acquiescence and intimation that
his full purse assured him an easy acceptance in various other quarters,
her rage and disappointment at his departure, and final relenting and
consent on his return; all of which with her "iddy-iddy-ido" she sang,
or rather acted, with incomparable humor and effect. I admired her
extremely.

In 1841 I began a visit of two years and a half in England. During this
time I constantly met Mrs. Norton in society. She was living with her
uncle, Charles Sheridan, and still maintained her glorious supremacy of
beauty and wit in the great London world. She came often to parties at
our house, and I remember her asking us to dine at her uncle's, when
among the people we met were Lord Lansdowne and Lord Normanby, both then
in the ministry, whose good-will and influence she was exerting herself
to _captivate_ in behalf of a certain shy, silent, rather rustic
gentleman from the far-away province of New Brunswick, Mr. Samuel Cunard,
afterwards Sir Samuel Cunard of the great mail-packet line of steamers
between England and America. He had come to London an obscure and humble
individual, endeavoring to procure from the government the sole privilege
of carrying the transatlantic mails for his line of steamers. Fortunately
for him he had some acquaintance with Mrs. Norton, and the powerful
beauty, who was kind-hearted and good-natured to all but her natural
enemies (i.e. the members of her own London society), exerted all her
interest with her admirers in high place in favor of Cunard, and had made
this very dinner for the express purpose of bringing her provincial
_protege_ into pleasant personal relations with Lord Lansdowne and Lord
Normanby, who were likely to be of great service to him in the special
object which had brought him to England. The only other individual I
remember at the dinner was that most beautiful person,