She used to think me, for instance, little short of an admirable Crichton! Of course all the above rehearsed good qualities were, or were calculated to be, immediately perceived and appreciated, while the less pleasant specialties which accompanied them were of a kind to become more perceptible only in close intimacy.

And while no intimacy ever lessened that regard of my mother and myself that had been won by the first, it was not long before we were both, my mother especially, vexed by exhibitions of the second.
As, for instance:--Lady Bulwer had for some days been complaining of feeling unwell, and was evidently suffering.

My mother urged her to have some medical advice, whereupon she turned on her very angrily, while the tears started to her beautiful eyes, and said, "How _can_ you tell me to do any such thing, when you know that I have not a guinea for the purpose ?" (She was frequently wont to complain of her poverty.) But she had hardly got the words out of her mouth when the servant entered the room saying that the silversmith was at the door asking that the account which he laid on the table might be paid.

The account (which Lady Bulwer made no attempt to conceal, for concealment of anything was not at all in her line) was for a pair of small silver spurs and an ornamented silver collar which she had ordered a week or two previously for the _ceremonial knighting of her little dog Taffy_! On another occasion a large party of us were to visit the Boboli Gardens.

It was a very hot day, and we had to climb the hill to the upper part of the gardens, from whence the view over Florence and the Val d'Arno is a charming one.