1G4 Mary Somerville. 



under the plea of business, a woman is not allowed 

 any such excuse. At Chelsea I was always supposed 

 to be at home, and as my friends and acquaintances 

 came so far out of their way on purpose to see me, 

 it would have been unkind and ungenerous not to 

 receive them. Nevertheless, I was sometimes an- 

 noyed when in the midst of a difficult problem some 

 one would enter and say, " I have come to spend a 

 few hours with you." However, I learnt by habit 

 to leave a subject and resume it again at once, like 

 putting a mark into a book I might be reading ; this 

 was the more necessary as there was no fire-place 

 in my little room, and I had to write in the 

 drawing-room in winter. Frequently I hid my 

 papers as soon as the bell announced a visitor, lest 

 anyone should discover my secret. 



[My mother had a singular power of abstraction. When 

 occupied with some difficult problem, or even a train 

 of thought which deeply interested her, she lost all con- 

 sciousness of what went on around her, and became so 

 entirely absorbed that any amount of talking, or even 

 practising scales and solfeggi, went on without in the 

 least disturbing her. Sometimes a song or a strain of 

 melody would recall her to a sense of the present, for 

 she was passionately fond of music. A curious instance 

 of this peculiarity of hers occurred at Borne, when a 

 large party were assembled to listen to a celebrated 

 improvisatrice. My mother was placed in the front row, 



