This lover of flowers, a descendant from the Roger North remembered by his biography of three notable brothers, was born at Hastings, for which her father sat in Parliament. Her desire to see and to paint the tropics was awakened at Kew when Sir William Hooker gave her a glorious bunch from the first _Amherstia nobilis_ to bloom in England. With her father she travelled much in Europe, and as far as Syria and Egypt. Thrown on her own guidance after his death and the marriage of her sister to J. A. Symonds, she launched out for America and the West Indies; then took a tour round the world and made some stay in India, bringing back from time to time several hundred paintings to be exhibited at South Kensington. When she found her work appreciated, Miss North resolved on presenting the whole collection to the public, and at her own expense set about the building of a gallery for it at Kew. Before this was opened in 1882, she had been to Australasia for fresh subjects; then again set off to enrich its contents from South Africa and the islands of the Indian Ocean. The gallery had soon to be enlarged, while its indefatigable founder made her last expedition, this time to Chili. The story of those peregrinations is told in her _Recollections of a Happy Life_, that pass over lightly the many hardships she braved in procuring so much pleasure for her stay-at-home countryfolk. But perilous climates and trying exertions had told on her nerves; and after a year spent in finally arranging the Kew collection, she was fain to seek the repose of a Gloucestershire garden, which many friends contributed to adorn with such beauties as she had followed far and near. Here, a few years later, she died in 1890. [Illustration: HERBACEOUS GARDENS] The North collection is unique, not only in its scope and interest, but in its being the work of one woman, whom Queen Victoria regretted that she could distinguish by no mark of public honour: in the next reign she might have been rewarded by the new Order of Merit bestowed on Florence Nightingale. Her legacy to the nation, catalogued in more than a hundred pages, pictures some thousand species of flowers and plants, from nearly all parts of the world, for the most part executed on the spot within little over a dozen years. This is the sight no visitor should miss; and from whatever clime he comes, he is almost sure to find some _souvenir_ of it blooming here under the dullest sky and the chilliest influences, against which Kew Gardens strive to carry out their aim of epitomising the earth’s vegetable life. FOOTNOTES [1] _The Dictionary of National Biography_’s article on Francis Willis, written, I understand, by a descendant of his, hardly does justice to this one of his sons. The writer mentions John and Robert as concerned with treating the King at different times, but does not bring forward Thomas, who, so far as I can make out, was closely in charge during the attack of 1801.