As a child Lucie played with her cousin, John Stuart Mill. In 1826 her parents spent some time in Germany where she became fluent in German. She married a Scottish baronet and lived in London where her circle of literary friends included Dickens, Thackeray, Meredith and George Eliot. In 1860, escaping the English climate, she went to southern Africa seeking a cure. She moved on to Egypt where, apart from two short visits to England, she remained until her death. Her vivid letters home, revealing the close relationships she established in Egypt (unlike the majority of Western travellers of her day) were published in 1865 and 1875. She was buried in Cairo.
In this portrait she looks in good health, but even by its completion she was already wasted by the consumption that was to kill her.