When I was about sixteen, my personal charms began to develop themselves, and having a fine thick head of hair (of a rich, warm chesnut colour) my mamma would make me wear it in long, beautiful ringlets; and, indeed, even now my back hair is so long that it reaches much lower than my waist. My eyes, which were of light hazel, though small, were considered so full of expression, that they made up in meaning what they wanted in brilliance; while I was blessed with such a remarkably fine, clear complexion of my own, and had such an extremely high colour, (which, indeed, I have retained to this day,) that I have over and over again been accused of rouging; (both my little girls take after me in this respect.) I have my papa’s nose, which is a fine Roman, and my mamma’s mouth and dimple. My greatest drawback, as a young woman, was my exceedingly bashful and retiring disposition, which used to flutter me so, that whenever I was spoken to by a stranger, it invariably threw all the blood in my body into my face; so that I seldom had a word to say for myself--which failing, indeed, I never have been able to get over even to this time. Long before I was twenty-one, my papa had many advantageous offers for my hand, but he would accept of none of them for me; as he did not then consider me fit to enter upon the stormy path of matrimonial life, for my dear, foolish mamma would never allow me to attend to the housekeeping, from a pardonable pride she felt in her illustrious descent. So that, as things turned out, perhaps it was better that I did not get settled until I had nearly attained my twenty-sixth year. On the 14th of May, 1840, at the ball of the Caledonians, I met my present husband, Edward Sk--n--st--n, Esquire, who was then a widower without encumbrance, (although, if there _had_ been any children by his former wife, I trust I know myself too well to have done other than treat them as my own flesh and blood.) The poor man was so taken with my _tout ensemble_ at first sight, that he would scarcely leave me for a moment throughout the evening, and would insist upon accompanying both mamma and myself home. We soon discovered that he was a lawyer, in a very excellent practice; so that mamma, the next time he called, asked him to stop to dinner with us, and introduced him to papa, who was very glad to see him. After dinner, when we had gone to the drawing-room, mamma begged me to sing; and I obliged him with one of my most admired little French “_Romans_,” when the poor man seemed quite moved by my strains.