This sounds like a curious echo of an early experience of her father. When a boy of about ten, he caught smallpox, and ‘came forth,’ as he related of himself long after, ‘most wofully disfigured.... “Well,” observed one of my aunts, “you have now, Henry, lost all your good looks, and you have nothing for it but to make yourself agreeable by your manners and accomplishments.” Here was cold comfort; but the words made an impression upon my mind, and may possibly have had some influence on my future life.’