Born at Newcastle-Emlyn, being one of a family of four children. She was educated privately in London by a Mrs. Solley, wife of the Rev. H. Solley, who was a personal, friend of Charles Dickens, she was musical and artistic, but modest to a degree of her accomplishments. She could speak Welsh and French well and had a good knowledge of Italian

Her love of animals was intense, believing many of them to have better qualities than some mortals. In her early days she had two squirrels sufficiently tamed to perch on her shoulders and eat from her hands. Being deadly opposed to vivisection, she, on her deathbed, although suffering intense agony, said she would not accept a cure through the sacrifice of a dumb animal to torture if it were offered to her. She was merciful of all human failing and charitable to the verge of indiscretion, having only quite recently virtually adopted a peasant's boy who had been treated unkindly. Her love of Wales was intense, as well as of writing about it, and she would prefer retaining its superstitions to drifting into the materialism of today.