‘I turned my coal-house into my dark room,’ she wrote, ‘and a glazed fowl-house I had given to my children became my glass house, the society of hens and chickens was soon changed into that of poets, prophets, painters, children and lovely maidens. I worked fruitlessly but not hopelessly.... I longed to arrest all the beauty that came before me, and at length the longing was satisfied.’ Miss Marie Spartali, a very beautiful young lady who had come over to pose to Mrs. Cameron, described finding her absorbed in another sitter—her own parlourmaid, Mary Hillier, draped and patient, representing some mythological personage. There was a ring at the outer bell (focussing in those days took long and anxious minutes), and as Mary Hillier could not be allowed to move, Miss Spartali went to the door, where the visitor, seeing this stately lovely apparition dressed in wonderful attire, exclaimed ‘Are you then the beautiful parlourmaid?’ This little ancient joke is still quoted against the beautiful lady. How familiar to all, who were forced by the photographer into the little studio, is the remembrance of the mingled scent of chemicals and sweetbriar already meeting one in the road outside Dimbola! The terrors of the studio itself are still remembered, the long painful waiting, when we would have trembled had we dared to do so, under her impetuous directions to be still. This is her own description of her art, writing to Mrs. Tennyson: ‘I send you dear Louie Simeon’s letter to show how they all value the likeness of the father of that house and home. It is a sacred blessing which has attended my photography. It gives a pleasure to millions and a deeper happiness to very many.... While the spirit is in me I must praise those I love.’ The coffee crop had failed in Ceylon several years and the money difficulties became very serious for the Camerons. Photography might have paid better if the photographer had been less lavish in her gifts and ways. She was a true artist in her attitude towards money. She, the most recklessly generous of women, was able to write: ‘I myself have never felt humiliated at the idea of receiving charities, for I always feel about friendship and love that what it is good to give it is also good to take.’ ‘I do not mean to let you ruin yourself by giving the photographs away,’ Mrs. Tennyson wrote: ‘I cannot pretend to say that I do not prize a kindness done to mine, more than if it were done to myself, still I feel bound to point with a solemn finger to those stalwart boys of yours, saying “Remember.” I see that I shall have to set up a shop for the sale of photographs myself all for your benefit.’