Rigby, while in the ministry, fought a duel with some
political opponent. Mr. Rigby had taken great notice of the little
French child treated with such affectionate familiarity by his sister,
and she had attached herself so strongly to him that, on hearing the
circumstance of his duel suddenly mentioned for the first time, she
fainted away: a story that always reminded me of the little Spanish girl
Florian mentions in his "Memoires d'un jeune Espagnol," who, at six
years of age, having asked a young man of upward of five and twenty if
he loved her, so resented his repeating her question to her elder sister
that she never could be induced to speak to him again.
Meantime, while the homes of the great and gay were her constant resort,
the child's home was becoming sadder, and her existence and that of her
parents more precarious and penurious day by day. From my grandfather's
first arrival in London, his chest had suffered from the climate; the
instrument he taught was the flute, and it was not long before decided
disease of the lungs rendered that industry impossible. He endeavored to
supply its place by giving French and drawing lessons (I have several
small sketches of his, taken in the Netherlands, the firm, free delicacy
of which attest a good artist's handling); and so struggled on, under
the dark London sky, and in the damp, foggy, smoky atmosphere, while the
poor foreign wife bore and nursed four children.
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