Mrs. Loudon must not be forgotten among the friends of some celebrity whom I remember with pleasure. Distinguished as a writer of fiction, she, in middle age, acquired, or, at any rate, improved, her knowledge of botany in order to be a literary helpmate to her more famous husband, who died before I knew her. The incident, however, which was said to have led to their marriage, was sufficiently amusing. I cannot say that I heard the story from her own lips, but it was so widely bruited among her older friends that I have no doubt of its truth.

About the year 1830 or 1831 a novel, entitled “The Mummy,” was published anonymously, and attracted considerable attention. I remember reading it—a well-thumbed library book—at the seaside in 1834, and, though perhaps too young to enter fully into its satire, I found it very entertaining. I have never seen it since, but I know it represented the resuscitation of a royal Egyptian mummy, who is brought face to face, not with the European civilization then existing, but with what the author conjectured would be the inventions and circumstances of, I think, the twenty-second century. Few people imagined the work to be written by a woman, though it was the production of the future Mrs. Loudon, then Miss Webb. A common friend of hers and of Mr. Loudon's, hearing him praise “The Mummy,” asked him if he would like to meet the author.