I have been much annoyed to-day by a paragraph in two
papers about my turning a woman out of doors—pray if you see or hear of
it, contradict it. As I hope for mercy, it is a most shameful falsehood made by
a very wicked girl because I sent her away. She came to me as Agnes
Drummond, a spinster, and ten days after hid a man in Brockett
Hall; the servants, in an uproar, discovered him in the evening; he said first
his name was Drummond, then
Fain—it was natural we should desire him to walk
out, in particular as Agnes Drummond had confided to me,
only the day before, that she had been married, when sixteen, to a thief of the
name of Fain, who had married her and carried away her
watch and property. I trouble you
| WRITING THE WORK ON SALVATOR ROSA. | 175 |
I have, I think, the very person Lady Cloncurry would like; she is about
twenty-two, very clever, good, and with a good manner, writes a beautiful hand,
knows music thoroughly, both harp and pianoforte. She is attached to an old
mathematician in Russia—a Platonic attachment; his name is
Wronsky, so that as they are not to marry or meet for
ten years, she is very anxious to go into any respectable and comfortable
family where she will be well treated; she draws, paints uncommonly well, and,
provided she had a room to herself, a fire, pen, ink, and paper, or a book, I
dare say she will make herself comfortable anywhere; how far she would like
Ireland, I guess not, as her views turned to Italy or Paris: if, however, your
lady will communicate with her herself, I will send you her answer; she is a
person of strict morals and great propriety—a little high, but
excessively sweet-tempered. She is by no means expensive, yet to go to Ireland
I think she would ask eighty guineas—is that too much? She would dedicate
all her time to the children after ten in the morning to six at night;
| 176 | LADY MORGAN'S MEMOIR. |
