Indeed, blondes have a great responsibility placed upon them, as in the old story-books the fair women are very good and the brunettes very bad, though I have not always found the distinction to be carried out in real life. The other chief characteristic of my exterior is that I am very diminutive, a subject on which I have been “chaffed” my life long. I have often been induced to complain that as “Greenwich is the standard for longitude, so Mary is the standard for shortitude.” In spite of which, it has been a cherished vanity of mine that I have very long legs in proportion to my height, and five feet and eight heads (_Anglice_) in drawing, was the strange description I gave of myself to a friend, whose natural rejoinder was, “What a very remarkable animal!” One of my chief moral attributes was light-heartedness, and, as Autolycus says: “A merry heart goes many a league, Your sad one tires in a mile”— which is perhaps the reason of my having been an indefatigable walker. From my earliest childhood I have had a decided predilection—I might almost say passion—for all that is bright and brilliant, in garments, furniture, decorations. The “sick turned up with sad” which a few years ago held such universal sway in fashion, and which I devoutly hope is now in the wane, never had any charms for me. Firmly believing as I do that the colouring of our native island is not sufficiently cheering of itself to dispense with cheerful adjuncts, I have wooed external brightness, which does not seem unnatural to the tastes of a “Butterfly.” But let me proceed with my narrative. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [Illustration: _M Boyle_ ] [Sidenote: A NATIVE OF LONDON] Being a native of London, I am an undoubted Cockney, a circumstance which embittered many of my childish years, and although by no means of an envious disposition, I assuredly envied my sister the privilege of being born in a delightful old Queen Anne’s mansion, in a pretty room, overhanging a broad gravel terrace, the windows of which were embowered with roses, jasmine, and honeysuckle—Balls Park, the home of my uncle, Lord John Townshend—and I have often upbraided my mother for not having selected so delightful a spot for my entrance into the world.[7] Footnote 7: Mary Louisa Boyle, born November 1810, died April 1890.