I must touch upon the foibles of my kinswoman with a gentle hand, for Bridget does not like to be told of her faults. She hath an awkward trick (to say no worse of it) of reading in company; at which times she will answer Yes or No to a question without fully understanding its purport--which is provoking and derogatory in the highest degree to the dignity of the putter of the said question. Her presence of mind is equal to the most pressing trials of life, but will sometimes desert her upon trifling occasions. When the purpose requires it, and is a thing of moment, she can speak to it greatly; but in matters which are not stuff of the conscience, she hath been known sometimes to let slip a word less seasonable. In a season of distress she is the truest comforter; but in the teasing accidents and minor perplexities which do not call out the _will_ to meet them, she sometimes maketh matters worse by an excess of participation. If she does not always divide your trouble, upon the pleasanter occasions of life, she is sure always to treble your satisfaction. CHARLES LAMB: _Mackery End, in Hertfordshire_, ‘Essays of Elia.’ * * * * * [Sidenote: Mary’s first pun.] When I first opened upon the just-mentioned poem [‘The Force of Prayer, or the Founding of Bolton Priory,’] in a careless tone, I said to Mary, as if putting a riddle, “What is good for a bootless bene?” To which, with infinite presence of mind (as the jest-book has it), she answered, “A shoeless pea.” It was the first she ever made. CHARLES LAMB: _Letter to Wordsworth_, in ‘Final Memorials,’ by T. N. Talfourd. * * * * * [Sidenote: Her manner of speaking.] She had a speaking voice, gentle and persuasive; and her smile was her brother’s own--winning in the extreme. There was a certain catch, or emotional breathingness, in her utterance, which gave an inexpressible charm to her reading of poetry, and which lent a captivating earnestness to her mode of speech when addressing those she liked. This slight check, with its yearning, eager effect in her voice, had something softenedly akin to her brother Charles’ impediment of articulation: in him it scarcely amounted to a stammer, in her it merely imparted additional stress to the fine-sensed suggestions she made to those whom she counselled or consoled. There was a certain old-world fashion in Mary Lamb’s diction which gave it a most natural and quaintly pleasant effect, and which heightened rather than detracted from the more heart-felt or important things she uttered. CHARLES AND MARY COWDEN CLARKE: ‘Recollections of Writers.’ * * * * * [Sidenote: Writing together.]