epigrammatic in her talk, and comically dramatic in her manner of narrating things.  I do not know whether she had any theatrical talent, though she sang pathetic and humorous songs admirably, and I remember shaking in my shoes when, soon after I came out, she told me she envied me, and would give anything to try the stage herself.  I thought, as I looked at her wonderful, beautiful face, “Oh, if you should, what would become of me!” She was no musician, but had a deep, sweet contralto voice, precisely the same in which she always spoke, and which, combined with her always lowered eyelids ("downy eyelids” with sweeping silken fringes), gave such incomparably comic effect to her sharp retorts and ludicrous stories; and she sang with great effect her own and Lady Dufferin’s social satires, “Fanny Grey,” and “Miss Myrtle,” etc., and sentimental songs like “Would I were with Thee,” “I dreamt ’twas but a Dream,” etc., of which the words were her own, and the music, which only amounted to a few chords with the simplest modulations, her own also.  I remember she used occasionally 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