though she had then for some time ceased to be among the dancers. She had that "non so ché" which attracted everybody to her, high and low, young and old, distinguished and obscure, ambitious and meek, alike. It was rarely that any one of consequence in the world of letters or of art paid ever so short a visit to Florence without making her acquaintance;and whether English, French, Germans, or Americans touched her threshold, the same genial "salve" greeted them. She never seemed to suffer from either of those two disastrous diseases of modern social life—ennui or boredom; and her patience with stupid people made one ashamed. But with truly congenial spirits her wit was delightful, her sprightliness irresistible, her conversational fervour inexhaustible. The news, "Isa is coming," invariably filled with an almost childlike delight a certain Florence circle, whose members are now, alas! scattered to the four cold winds. She never departed without leaving a blank.
Nor was the tenderness of her heart limited to her own species. I might say that she turned her house into a hospital for dogs, were it not that none of them were, in any sense of the word, invalids. But they had been dogs in distress at some period or other, and their misery had caused her first acquaintance with, and final adoption of them. I remember her writing to me in 1866, after a visit she had paid to Venice, and in the letter she described how she had rescued a poor poodle from the clutches of some boys, who, after shaving it till it resem-
