Page:Notable women authors of the day (IA notablewomenauth00blaciala).pdf/111

 with a fierce snowstorm, and a keen east wind, which drives the flakes straight into your face like repeated stings of a small sharp whip, a welcome shelter is presently found in Florence Martyat's pretty, picturesque little house in St. Andrew's Road, West Kensington. Two bright red pots filled with evergreens mark the house, which is built in the Elizabethan style of architecture, with a covered verandah running along the upper part. By a strange coincidence, the famous author has settled down within a stone's throw of the place where her distinguished father—the late Captain Marryat, R.N.—once lived. Until three months ago, there stood in the Fulham Palace Road, a large, handsome building enclosed in ten acres of ground, which was first called "Brandenburg Villa," and was inhabited by the celebrated singer Madame Sontag. It next fell into the hands of the Duke of Sussex, who changed its name to Sussex House, and finally sold it to his equerry Captain Marryat, who exchanged it with Mrs. Alexander Copeland for the Manor of Langham, in Norfolk, where he died. For some years past Sussex House has been in Chancery, but now it is pulled