How far, if in any degree, this fact may be
supposed to have been connected in the relation of cause and effect,
with the other fact that her mother was more than fifty years of age
at the time of her birth, I leave to the speculations of physiological
inquirers. In bodily constitution her inheritance from her father's
mother was most marked. To that source must be traced, I conceive, the
delicacy of constitution, speaking medically, which deprived me of
her at a comparatively early age; for both father and mother were
of thoroughly healthy and strong constitutions. But if it may be
suspected that the Brahmin Sultana, her grandmother, bequeathed her
her frail diathesis, there was no doubt or difficulty in tracing to
that source the exterior delicacy of formation which characterised
her. I remember her telling me that the last words a dying sister of
her mother's ever spoke, when Theodosia standing by the bedside placed
her hand on the dying woman's forehead were, "Ah, that is Theo's
little Indian hand," And truly the slender delicacy of hand and foot,
which characterised her, were unmistakably due to her Indian descent.
In person she in nowise resembled either father or mother, unless it
were possibly her father in the conformation and shape of the teeth.
[Footnote 1: But this she might also have got from her father, who was
passionately fond of music, and was a very respectable performer on
the violin.
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