Adelaide studied in London with John Braham and in Italy under the great soprano Giuditta Pasta.

She wrote A Week in a French Country House (1867), a bright, humorous story, followed by other, more mediocre tales.

Their son, Algernon Edward Sartoris, married the granddaughter of the conductor Sir Charles Hallé.

The young Frederic Leighton (the painter of Flaming June and a president of the British Royal Academy of Art from 1878 until his death in 1895) was introduced to her circle in Rome, and was greatly influenced by her in many respects, most evidently, perhaps, in social and musical areas.

Mrs. Sartoris and the younger artist, who shortly before his death was granted a peerage, becoming Lord Leighton, maintained a close friendship for the rest of her life.