LITERARY WORK IN LONDON. 217 



living in a very quiet way, keeping house in Clapton for 

 her aged parents. 



Emily Bowes was in her forty-third year when Philip 

 Gosse first met her, but she retained a remarkable appear- 

 ance of youth. Her figure was slim and tall, her neck of 

 singular length and grace ; her face small, with rather 

 large and regular features, clear blue eyes delicately set in 

 pink lids, under arched and pencilled auburn eyebrows ; 

 the mouth very sensitive, with something of the expression 

 of Sir Joshua's little *' Child with the Rat-Trap ; " the 

 whole face surmounted by copious rolls and loops, in the 

 fashion of the period, of orange-auburn hair. In earlier 

 life the complexion had been brilliant, but almost the only 

 sign of the passage of years, in 1848, was the pallor of the 

 skin, w^hich was, moreover, badly freckled. But for her 

 complexion she would still have been a very pretty woman, 

 of the type admired by the painters of to-day. She was 

 painted several times, and in particular there existed of her 

 a very amusing full-length oil portrait, by G. F. Joseph, 

 A.R.A., which represented her in a pink satin dress, at the 

 age of six, bareheaded and barelegged, on the top of 

 Snowdon in a storm, with forked lightning playing behind 

 her. This was hung, in its day, in the Royal Academy, and 

 was stolen, alas ! a few years ago, by a person who certainly 

 could obtain very little satisfaction from a theft which left 

 our family sensibly poorer. 



Miss Emily Bowes was one of those who had accepted 

 the views of the Plymouth Brethren, and as there was no 

 meeting of these Christians in Clapton, she was in the 

 habit of walking over to Hackney on Sunday mornings, 

 usually lunching there, and returning home after the 

 evening meeting. In this manner she naturally formed 

 the acquaintance of Philip Gosse, who was immediately 

 attracted by her wide range of knowledge and by her 



