124 Mary Somerville. 



between his family and me ; for when I was a girl I 

 took the anti-slavery cause so warmly to heart that 

 I would not take sugar in my tea, or indeed taste 

 anything with sugar in it. I was not singular in 

 this for my cousins and many of my acquaintances 

 came to the same resolution. How long we kept il; 

 I do not remember. Patty Smith and I became 

 great friends, and I knew her sisters ; but only 

 remember her niece Florence Nightingale as a very 

 little child. My friend Patty was liberal in her 

 opinions, witty, original, an excellent horsewoman, 

 and drew cleverlv : but from bad health she was 



/ * 



peculiar in all her habits. She was a good judge 

 of art. Her father had a valuable collection of 

 pictures of the ancient masters ; and I learnt much 

 from her with regard to paintings and style in 

 drawing. We went to see everything in Naples and 

 its environs together, and she accompanied Somer- 

 ville and me in an expedition to Paestum, where we 

 made sketches of the temples. At Naples we bought 

 a beautiful cork model of the Temple of Neptune, 

 which was placed on our mineral cabinet on our 

 return to London. A lady who came to pay me a 

 morning visit asked Somerville what it was ; and 

 when he told her, she said, " How dreadful it is to 

 think that all the people who worshipped in that 

 temple are in eternal misery, because they did not 



