th us, to take care of me. She died in consequence of the
overturning of a carriage (in which we were travelling), from which she
received a concussion of the spine; and her last words to me, after a
night of angelic endurance of restless fever and suffering, were, "Open
the window; let in the blessed light"--almost the same as Goethe's, with
a characteristic difference. It was with the hope of giving her the
proceeds of its publication, as a token of my affectionate gratitude,
that I printed my American journal; that hope being defeated by her
death, I gave them, for her sake, to her younger sister, my aunt
Victoire Decamp. This sister of my mother's was, when we were living in
Covent Garden Chambers, a governess in a school at Lea, near Blackheath.

The school was kept by ladies of the name of Guinani, sisters to the
wife of Charles Young--the Julia so early lost, so long loved and
lamented by him. I was a frequent and much-petted visitor to their
house, which never fulfilled the austere purpose implied in its name to
me, for all my days there were holidays; and I remember hours of special
delight passed in a large drawing-room where two fine cedars of Lebanon
threw grateful gloom into the windows, and great tall china jars of
pot-pourri filled the air with a mixed fragrance of roses and (as it
seemed to me) plum-pudding, and where hung a picture, the contemplation
of which more than once moved me to tears, after I had been given to
understand that the princely personage and fair-headed baby in a boat in
the midst of a hideous black sea, overhung by a hideous black sky, were
Prospero, the good Duke of Milan, and his poor little princess daughter,
Miranda, cast forth by wicked relations to be drowned.

It was while we were still living in Covent Garden Chambers that Talma,
the great French actor, came to London. He knew both my uncle and my
father, and was highly esteemed and greatly admired by both of them. He
called one day upon my father, when nobody was at home, and the servant
who opened the door holding me by the hand, the famous French actor, who
spoke very good English, though not without the "pure Parisian accent,"
took some kind of notice of me, desiring me to be sure and remember his
name, and tell my father that Mr. Talma, the great French tragedian, had
called. I replied that I would do so, and then added, with noble
emulation, that my father was also a great tragedian, and my uncle was
also a great traged