out them, stretched on one side of the high-road; and
on the other, the untidy, shaggy, ravelled-looking selvage of Hyde Park;
not trimmed with shady walks and flower borders and smooth grass and
bright iron railing as now, but as forbidding in its neglected aspect as
the desolate stretch of uninclosed waste on the opposite side.

About a mile from Tyburn Gate a lane turned off on the right, following
which one came to a meadow, with a path across its gentle rise which led
to the row of houses called Craven Hill. I do not think there were
twenty in all, and some of them, such as Lord Ferrar's and the Harley
House, were dwellings of some pretension. Even the most modest of them
had pretty gardens in front and behind, and verandas and balconies with
flowering creepers and shrubberies, and a general air of semi-rurality
that cheated my poor mother with a make-believe effect of being, if not
in the country, at any rate out of town. And infinite were the devices
of her love of elegance and comfort produced from the most unpromising
materials, but making these dwellings of ours pretty and pleasant beyond
what could have been thought possible. She had a peculiar taste and
talent for furnishing and fitting up; and her means being always very
limited, her zeal was great for frequenting sales, where she picked up
at reasonable prices quaint pieces of old furniture, which she brought
with great triumph to the assistance of the commonplace upholstery of
our ready-furnished dwellings. Nobody ever had such an eye for the
disposal of every article in a room, at once for greatest convenience
and best appearance; and I never yet saw the apartment into which by her
excellent arrangement she did not introduce an element of comfort and
elegance--a liveable look, which the rooms of people unendowed with that
special faculty never acquire, and never retain, however handsome or
finely fitted up they may be. I am sorry to be obliged to add, however,
that she had a rage for moving her furniture from one place to another,
which never allowed her to let well alone; and not unfrequently her mere
desire for change destroyed the very best results of her own good taste.
We never knew when we might find the rooms a perfect chaos of disorder,
with every chair, table, and sofa "dancing the hayes" in horrid
confusion; while my mother, crimson and dishevelled with pulling and
pushing them hither and thither, was breathlessly organizing new
combinations. No