ica, Italy, or
France.

His first wife died early, leaving one son and daughter. The second
wife was an enthusiastic, artistic girl, especially musical, a friend
of Dickens, and every way fitted to be the intelligent companion of
her husband.

After the birth of Elizabeth, the family resided in various parts of
Southern Europe. Now they lived, says Mrs. Alice Meynell, her only
sister, in the January, 1883, _St. Nicholas_, "within sight of the
snow-capped peaks of the Apennines, in an old palace, the Villa de
Franchi, immediately overlooking the Mediterranean, with olive-clad
hills at the back; on the left, the great promontory of Porto Fino; on
the right, the Bay of Genoa, some twelve miles away, and the long
line of the Apennines sloping down into the sea. The palace garden
descended, terrace by terrace, to the rocks, being, indeed, less a
garden than what is called a _villa_ in the Liguria, and a _podere_
in Tuscany,--a fascinating mixture of vine, olive, maize, flowers,
and corn. A fountain in marble, lined with maiden-hair, played at the
junction of each flight of steps. A great billiard-room on the first
floor, hung with Chinese designs, was Elizabeth Thompson's first
school-room; and there Charles Dickens, upon one of his Italian
visits, burst in upon a lesson in multiplication.

"The two children never went to school, and had no other teacher than
their father,--except their mother for music, and the usual professors
for 'accomplishments' in later years. And whether living happily in
their beautiful Genoese home, or farther north among the picturesque
Italian lakes, or in Switzerland, or among the Kentish hop-gardens and
the parks of Surrey, Elizabeth's one central occupation of drawing was
never abandoned,--literally not for a day."

She was a close observer of nature, and especially fond of animals.
When not out of doors sketching landscapes, she would sit in the house
and draw, while her father read to her, as he believed the two things
could be carried on beneficially.

She loved to draw horses running, soldiers, and everything which
showed animation and energy. Her educated parents had the good sense
not to curb her in these perhaps unusual tastes for a girl. They saw
the sure hand and broad thought of their child, and, no doubt, had
expectations of her future fame.

At fifteen, as the family had removed to England, Elizabeth joined
the South Kensington School of Design, and, later, took lessons in o