to receive them. Nevertheless, I was sometimes
annoyed 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 consciousness 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
Rome, when a large party were assembled to listen to a celebrated
improvisatrice. My mother was placed in the front row, close to the
poetess, who, for several stanzas, adhered strictly to the subject
which had been given to her. What it was I do not recollect, except
that it had no connection with what followed. All at once, as if by
a sudden inspiration, the lady turned her eyes full upon my mother,
and with true Italian vehemence and in the full musical accents of
Rome, poured forth stanza after stanza of the most eloquent
panegyric upon her talents and virtues, extolling them and her to
the skies. Throughout the whole of this scene, which lasted a
considerable time, my mother remained calm and unmoved, never
changing countenance, which surprised not only the persons present
but ourselves, as we well knew how much she disliked any display or
being brought forward in public. The truth was, that after listening
for a while to the improvising, a thought struck her connected with
some subject she was engaged in writing upon at the time and so
entirely absorbed her that she heard not a word of all that had been
declaimed in her praise, and was not a little surprised and confused
when she was complimented on it. I call this, advisedly, a power of
hers, for although it occa