At another party she saw Mr. Pierce Butler and his wife (Fanny Kemble), and remarked with a satiric touch rather unusual with her, though pardonable at thoughtless sixteen, "When I saw Mr. Butler, I said to myself, 'How could she?' but when afterwards I saw her I said, 'How could he?'" Mrs. Kemble was not then so well known to the world for her fine qualities of mind and heart and her powers of fascination as she has been of late years; and of course Louisa could see no more than others did.
Four years of great contentment were then spent at Sunbury in Middlesex, perhaps the happiest period of the two sisters' girlhood. Time had softened their grief for the loss of the beloved Emily, and for the parting from their excellent eldest brother, who was pursuing a deservedly prosperous official career in India.[1] The family party now consisted of Mr. and Mrs. Shore, their three young:est children, and a
- ↑ His great-uncle, Sir John Shore, created Lord Teignmouth, had been Governor-General of India at the end of the last century. A son of his, the Hon, Frederick Shore, was highly esteemed in those days for his earnest advocacy of the rights of the natives.
10
