Page:Women worth emulating (1877) Internet Archive.djvu/27

Rh these extravagant days. She says, "Fortune I had none, and my mother could only afford to give me a very moderate trousseau, consisting chiefly of fine personal and household linen. When I was going away, she gave me twenty pounds to buy a shawl or something warm for the winter. I knew that Sir Arthur Shee, of the Academy of Paintings, had painted a portrait of my father immediately after the battle of Camperdown, and I went to see it. The likeness pleased me; the price was twenty pounds; so, instead of a warm shawl, I bought my father's picture."

It is pleasant to read that soon after she had warmed her heart by possessing this treasure, she had a gift of furs presented to her by her husband's brother.

In many sketches of this lady's life it was said that her first husband directed her studies, and aided her in what became her favourite pursuits. This was very generally received and repeated as a truth; but in the work on her mother's life, by Miss Martha Somerville, this is positively contradicted. Mr. Greig is said not to have admired learning in women, and that he loved his charming wife in spite of, and not for, her intellectual attainments. The entire absence of all assumption, her manners and conversation, disarmed the prejudice which then was felt at any unusual mental gifts.

It is noticeable that in every period of her life this lady was a learner. I think that is why she