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.  Nor could anything be more ludicrous than my father’s piteous aspect, on arriving in the midst of this remue-menage, or the poor woman’s profound mortification when, finding everything moved from its last position (for the twentieth time), he would look around, and, instead of all the commendation she expected, exclaim in dismay, “Why, bless my soul! what has happened to the room, again!” Our furniture played an everlasting game of puss in the corner; and I am thankful that I have inherited some of my mother’s faculty of arranging, without any of her curious passion for changing the aspect of her rooms.

A pretty, clever, and rather silly and affected woman, Mrs. Charles M——­, who had a great passion for dress, was saying one day to my mother, with a lackadaisical drawl she habitually made use of, “What do you do when you have a headache, or are bilious, or cross, or nervous, or out of spirits?  I always change my dress; it does me so much good!” “Oh,” said my mother, briskly, “I change the furniture.”  I think she must have regarded it as a panacea for all the ills of life.  Mrs. Charles M——­ was the half-sister of that amiable woman and admirable actress, Miss Kelly.