letter M.' The play, _L'Aïeule_, was wonderfully well done by

Princess Radziwill, Princess Pallavicini, Princess Scilla, Duca del Gallo, and others, a most beautiful electric light being let in when the grandmother steals in to give the poison to the sleeping girl."

"_May 8._--We leave Rome to-morrow--leave it in a flush of summer glory, in a wealth unspeakable of foliage and flowers, orange blossoms scenting our staircase, the sky deep blue.

"All the last fortnight poor Emma Simpkinson[372] has been terribly ill--a great anxiety to us as to what was best to be done for her, but we hope now that she may be moved to England, and I must go with my restored Mother, who is expanding like a flower in the sunshine.

"This afternoon, at the crowded time, the young Countess Crivelli, the new Austrian Ambassadress, drove down the Corso. At the Porta del Popolo she met her husband's horse without a rider. Much alarmed, she drove on, and a little farther on she found her husband's dead body lying in the road. She picked it up, and drove back down the Corso with the dead man by her side."

Amongst the many English who spent this spring in Rome, I do not find any note, in my diaries, of Lord Houghton, yet his dinners for six in the Via S. Basilio were delightful. His children were real children then, and his son, Robin,[373] a boy of wonderful promise. Lord Houghton was never satisfied with talking well and delightfully himself; his great charm was his evident desire to draw out all the good there was in other people.

JOURNAL.

"_Venice, May 10, 1868._--We had a terribly hot journey by Spoleto and Ancona, and came on to Este. It is a long drive up from the station to the primitive little town close under the Euganean Hills, with the ruined castle where the first Guelph was born. The inn (La Speranza) is an old palace, and our sittingroom was thirty-four feet long. The country is luxuriance itself, covered with corn and flax, separated by rows of peach and fig trees, with vines leaping from tree to tree. I drove to Arqua, a most picturesque village in a hollow of the hills. In the little court of the church is Petrarch's tomb, of red Verona marble, and on the high ridge his house, almost unaltered, with old frescoes of his life, his chair, his chest, and his stuffed cat, shrunk almost to a weasel."

"_Augsburg, May 24._--From Venice we saw Torcello--the Mother, Lea, and I in a _barca_ gliding over those shallow mysterious waters to the distant island and its decaying church, where we sat to draw near Attila's marble chair half buried in the rank growth of the mallows.

"We came away by an early train to Verona, and drove in the afternoon to San Zenone, and then to the beautiful Giusti gardens for the sunset. Mother was able to climb up to the summer-house on the height, and the gardener gave us pinks and roses.

"On the 24th we came on to Trent, a most attractive place, with an interesting cathedral, fine fountains, beautiful trees, and surroundings of jagged pink mountains tipped with snow. Cheating the Alps by crossing the Brenner, we went by Salzburg to Berchtesgaden, where we found quiet rooms with a splendid view of the snow-clad Watzmann. We were rowed down the Königsee as far as the waterfall, Lea dreadfully frightened on the lake."

From Augsburg we went to Oberwesel on the Rhine, where we were very happy in a primitive hotel amid the vines and old timberhouses. On our second morning there, while I was drawing on the shore of the river, a strange and terrible presentiment came over me of some great misfortune, some overwhelming grief which was then taking place in England. I threw down my drawing things and hurried back to the hotel to my mother. "Never," I said, "have these sudden presentiments come to me without meaning. I am sure you will listen to me when I say that we ought to be in England directly."--"Yes," she said, "I quite believe it; let us go at once;" and then and there, in the hot morning, we walked down to the train. We travelled all night, and at daybreak we were in England. I confess that, as we travelled, the detailed impression which I had from my presentiment was wrong. I thought of what would have affected my mother most. I fancied that, as I was sitting on the Rhine shore, Arthur Stanley had died at Westminster. But John Gidman met us with our little carriage at Hastings, and as we drove up to Holmhurst he told me the dreadful truth--that, at the very moment of my presentiment, my sister Esmeralda had expired.

I still feel the echo of that terrible anguish.

XIII

LAST YEARS OF ESMERALDA

"Sleep sweetly, dear one; thou wilt wake at dawn."--MOSCHUS.

"Her mind was one of those pure mirrors from which the polluting breath passes away as it touches it."--BISHOP HEBER.

"Cette longue et cruelle maladie qu'on appelle la vie, est enfin guérie."--MADEMOISELLE D'ESPINASSE.

"Let her pure soul ... Remain my pledge in heaven, as sent to show How to this portal every step I go."--SIR JOHN BEAUMONT.

I think that I have not written anything concerning the life of my sister after we met her at Rome in the winter of 1865-66. Since that time she had been more incessantly engrossed by the affairs, and often very trivial interests, of the Roman Catholic Church, but without for a moment relaxing her affection and cordiality towards us. Great was my pleasure in watching how, in spite of all religious differences, my mother became increasingly fond of her every time they met. I think it is William Penn who says, "The meek, the just, the pious, the devout, are all of one religion."

On leaving Rome in 1866, Esmeralda made it an object to visit the famous "Nun of Monza," Ancilla Ghizza, called in religion the "Madre Serafina della Croce." This nun had been founding a religious order at Monza, which was at first intended to be affiliated to the Sacramentarie on the Quirinal at Rome. She was supposed to have not only the "stigmata," but the marks of our Lord's scourging, to be gifted with a wonderful power and knowledge of the interior life, and to possess the gift of prophecy. She was summoned to Rome, and, after three years' noviciate at the Sacramentarie, she was permitted, in 1862, to return to Monza, and to begin her community, fifteen nuns being clothed at the same time. She used to distribute little crosses which she declared to have been blessed by our Lord in person, and she was often in an ecstasy, in which it was alleged that her body became so light that she could be raised from the ground by a single hair of her head! Concerning Serafina della Croce, Esmeralda had already received from a celebrated Italian ecclesiastic the following:--

"_Venezia, 3 Gennaio, 1864._--Mi scusi se io così presto riprendo la penna, per offrirle il mio povero tentativo di consolarla, sotto la forma di questa piccola croce, che io ebbi dall' Ancilla Ghizzi di Monza, e che è stata benedetta dalle mani stesse di Nostro Signore in una visione. Io potrei dirle molto di queste croci, ma ci vorrebbe troppo tempo. Così io le dirò soltanto per affermare la sua opinione sopra la santità di questa serva di Dio, che io conosco qui un sacerdote che andò a vederla, e al quale il confessore dell' Ancilla delegò la sua autorità, dicendogli che poteva commandarla ed interrogarla per un' ora, come se fosse lui stesso il suo confessore. Infatti, portatosi dall' Ancilla, senza che essa fosse stata avvertita di quest' accordo fra loro, il Sacerdote le diède mentalmente l'obbedienza di unirsi con Dio in orazione, ed essa immediatamente andò in estasi, e continuò un' ora intera in questo stato, nel qual tempo egli le domandò _mentalmente_ varie cose in rapporto a certe persone che desiderebbero essere raccomandate alle sue preghiere, ed essa rispondeva al suo precetto mentale, raccomandogli ogni persona ed ogni domanda al Signore di _viva voce_, continuando così un dialogo non interrotto. Qualche volta per la soddisfazione di una terza persona che era presente, questo Sacerdote gli diceva all' orecchio il soggetto sopra il quale voleva schiarimento. Debbo aggiungere che in questo stato il suo corpo è così leggiero che la poteva sollevare da terra _per un solo dei suoi capelli_, come se non avesse più nessun peso. Ho pure veduto dei manoscritti voluminosi del suo confessore pieni di maraviglie, e che dimostrano che la sua familiarità colle cose e colle persone celesti è arrivata ad un tal punto, che si può ben paragonare a tutto ciò che si legge nelle vite dei santi. Anzi a me mi pare che supera tutto quel che io ho letto fin qui."

Another intention of Esmeralda was to visit "Torchio," the inspired cobbler at Turin, and consult him on various subjects. This Torchio had had the most extraordinary visions of the Judgment; but alas! I neglected to write down the long verbal account which my sister gave me of her visit to him, and thus it is lost. I have only the following, written in crossing the Mont Cenis with an Asiatic bishop, to whom Esmeralda had offered a place in her carriage:--

"_June 4, 1866._--For three days running before leaving Rome, I had the visits of the venerable Monsignor Natale, and we talked of coming events in the political world. I went over from Pisa to Leghorn, and there I saw a very remarkable person called Suora Carolina. We went to Milan for one day, and from thence to Monza. I saw the bishop, and besought and entreated, and at last he gave permission, and I was the first to pass through the closed door of the convent, and to kneel and kiss the hand of the saint. Auntie went with me. I can never express what I felt. It was like seeing S. Francesco d'Assisi, and it seemed like a dream as, side by side, we walked through the cloisters and then went up into her cell: one so highly favoured! it was too much happiness. All I had heard was nothing to the reality, and there was Auntie sitting in her cell, the other nuns standing round. Her face was quite beautiful, quite heavenly.

"And then we returned to Milan and started for Turin, and there I went to see Torchio, the celebrated Torchio, as he sat on his basket and spoke as he was inspired. It was a wonderful and beautiful sermon, both in word and action. When he spoke of the Passion, one seemed to follow him to Calvary. He is a poor man living at the top of a very poor house, but he is an apostle."

Esmeralda returned to London to Mrs. Thorpe's, but in the autumn she went north and paid visits to the Monteiths and Stourtons and to Lady Herries in Yorkshire. Lady Herries said afterwards that she liked to think of her as she so often saw her in the chapel at Everingham, praying, "oh, so fervently," for hours together. As her life became more absorbed in devotion and religious interests, she was conscious of the danger of neglecting earthly duties and sympathies. On August 4, 1866, she wrote:--

"Let me walk in the presence of God without underrating His gifts, for the underrating of God's gifts is one of the temptations which I am required to fight against."

On September 8 she wrote:--

"Let me surrender entirely my individual will, to be completely united and absorbed in the will of Jesus Christ,--then will the truths of Christianity become a fixed life in my soul.

"The great impediment to the life of Jesus in the soul is the aiming at mediocrity in things pertaining to our Lord and to a spiritual life; whereas our Master would have us aim at _perfection_, and bear in mind as a command His words, 'Be ye perfect.'"

In August Esmeralda was thrown into real heart-mourning by the news which reached England of the death of "the Great Mother," Maria de Matthias. The following is from Pierina Rolleston, Superior of the Order of the Precious Blood in England:--

"My own dearest in the precious blood, I write in haste, and while I write my tears are flowing, because I have sad news to tell you and dear Mrs. Montgomery, who are both children of the Institute, and love our beloved Mother-General, who is in heaven, praying for us all. The following is a copy of a letter I received yesterday from Monsignor Talbot:--'I write to announce to you the death of your Mother-General. She expired two days ago--died as she lived, after giving examples of patience and resignation in the midst of her sufferings. To-morrow her funeral will be celebrated at the Church of SS. Vincenzo ed Anastasio, and I intend to attend. I do not think you need fear for the future of your Institute, because I think that the successor of your late Mother-General, though she may not be so saintly a person, will be equally able to carry on the business. I do not think you can be too grateful to Almighty God for having such friends as Monsignor Paterson and Miss Hare.' ... My dearest, I write in haste that you may receive all the news of our beloved Mother. Sister Carolina Longo, whom she named as her successor upon her death-bed, is a good clever nun, and she was Mother's dear child. She lived with Mother from a child of eight years old, and became a religious about the age of twenty-two. We have lost one of the dearest of mothers, but can look up to her in heaven, and I am sure she will help us in our work.... With fond love in the precious blood, I am always your most affectionate in Christ,

"PIERINA OF THE PRECIOUS BLOOD."

The winter of 1866-67 was chiefly passed by my sister at the house of Mrs. Alfred Montgomery at Ifield near Crawley, where Esmeralda and her aunt for many months shared in the housekeeping. For Esmeralda had been induced to regard Mrs. Montgomery as a religious martyr, and her impressionable nature was completely fascinated by her hostess. While at Ifield, a fatal web was drawn each day more closely by her Catholic associates, by which Esmeralda was induced to entrust large sums to her brother Francis for speculation upon the political prophecies of Madame de Trafford. Her unworldly nature was persuaded to consent to this means of (as Francis represented) largely increasing her income, by the prospect which was held out to her of having more money to employ in assisting various religious objects, especially the establishment of the Servites in London, and the foundation of their church, for which she had promised Father Bosio, General of the Servites, to supply £500, to be obtained either by collections or otherwise, at the expiration of three years. Esmeralda never knew or had the faintest idea of the sum to which her speculations amounted. She was beguiled on from day to day by two evil advisers, and, her heart being in other things, was induced to trust and believe that her worldly affairs were in the hands of disinterested persons. The lists of her intended employments for the next day, so many of which remained amongst her papers, show how little of her time and attention was given to pecuniary matters. From them it is seen that a quarter of an hour allotted to the discussion of investments with her brother would be preceded by an hour spent in writing about the affairs of a French convent or the maintenance of a poor widow in Rome, and followed by an hour devoted to the interests of the Servites or some other religious body. There is no doubt that Esmeralda undertook far more than was good either for her health or for her mind; each hour of every day was portioned out from the day before, and was fully and intensely occupied, especially when she was in London. If visitors or any unexpected circumstance prevented the task for which she had allotted any particular hour, she did not leave it on that account unfulfilled, but only detracted from the hours of rest. One thing alone, her daily meditation, she allowed nothing to interfere with. In the hours of meditation she found the refreshment which helped her through the rest of the day. "Our Lord requires of us that our souls should become a tabernacle for Him to dwell in," she wrote on February 2, 1867, "and the lamp lighted before it is the lamp of our affections."

All through the summer of 1866, my brother William's health had been declining, and in the autumn, in the hope of benefit from the sea-breezes, he was moved to Brighton, which he never left. After Christmas day he was never able to leave the house. The small fortune of his pretty helpless wife had been lost in a bankruptcy, and they were reduced to a state of destitution in which they were almost devoid of the absolute necessaries of life. The following are extracts from William's letters to his sister at this time:--

"You cannot imagine how I miss your letters when you cease to write for any length of time.... Since Sunday I have been confined to my bed, having almost lost all use of my limbs. I could not possibly be moved to our sitting-room, being in so weak and emaciated a condition, and I fear I shall have to keep my bed all through this bitter cold weather. I am so miserably thin that it is with the greatest difficulty that I can contrive to sit or lie in any position. It is, however, God's will that it should be so, and I am enabled to say 'Thy will be done, O Lord.' ... God has mercifully vouchsafed me time for repentance, and has brought me back to Himself, and made me one with Him by strengthening me with His own body, so that, dear sister, I feel supremely happy and at peace with all the world; and should it please Almighty God to call me hence, I feel serene in His love, that He has graciously forgiven me all my sins, and that He will take me to Himself where there is no longer any pain or suffering. Father Crispin came on Wednesday to hear my confession, and on Thursday morning he administered the most Blessed Sacrament to me. ... Dear Edith has received £10 lately, which you may well suppose at this critical time was obtained with very great difficulty; but all this money has been expended on my illness, and there is nothing left for the doctor's visits, medicine, or to pay the butcher, baker, washerwoman, milk, or coal bill. Yet it will not do to give up the doctor in my critical state, or to cease taking his medicine, or to deny myself the necessary restoratives; if I did I must inevitably sink. Will you not, in compassion for my fallen state, consent to make me some sort of allowance during my illness to enable me to obtain what is necessary?

"Mr. Blackwood (you will remember 'Beauty Blackwood,' who married the Duchess of Manchester[376]) has sent me a little book which he has just published--'The Shadow and the Substance,' which he assures me is quite free from controversy, and he desires me to read it with especial care and attention, as being conducive to my comfort during hours of sickness and suffering."

My sister immediately sent William all he required, when he again wrote:--

"How can I thank you sufficiently for so generously responding to my appeal in more senses than one, by sending me money to relieve the pressure of want, books to comfort me in hours of sickness, and wine to cheer and strengthen me?... Should I be spared, I must accept this illness as one of the greatest, indeed the greatest blessing I could possibly receive, for it has taught me my own nothingness, my all insufficiency, and it has drawn me from a sphere of sin into a sphere of grace; it has caused me to despise the world and all its vanities, and has diverted my heart and whole being to Almighty God; it has brought me into close communion with Him, strengthened by the graces of His Holy Sacraments, and has made me feel the blessedness of constant prayer. Oh, I would not change my present state for worlds; and should it please Almighty God to call me from hence, I feel that He will receive me into everlasting peace. Father Crispin called last evening: he considers me so prostrate that he intends administering the sacrament of Extreme Unction. Pray for me! I cannot express to you how rejoiced I am that we are again hand in hand together. You should not forget the days of our youth, we were always inseparable; we were then estranged from each other, and a very, very bitter time that was to me. I cannot say that I am any better."

After the receipt of this letter my sister hurried to Brighton, and she was there when William died. On the 11th of March she wrote to me:--

"We are here to be with William, to wait by his bedside during these last days of his illness. On Thursday night, and again on Friday night, it seemed as if the last hour was come, but there is now a slight, a very slight improvement, so that he may live a few days longer. Yesterday there came over him a momentary wish to recover, but it passed away, and his calm resignation was really unbroken and continues the same to-day. He does not murmur, though his sufferings must be terrible.... From time to time he asks me to read aloud a few lines of the 'Imitation of Christ,' but I can scarcely do it without breaking down as I look up and see those sunken cheeks and large glazed eyes fixed upon me with such a deep look of intense suffering."

Two unexpected friends appeared to cheer William's last days. One was the young Duchess of Sutherland, who had been intimate with him as a child, and having never met him since the days when they both lived in the Maison Valin, heard accidentally of his illness at Brighton; she came repeatedly to see him, and supplied him with many comforts, and even luxuries. The other was the well-known Miss Marsh, the authoress of the "Memorials of Hedley Vicars,"--the staunch Protestant, but liberal Christian. She happened to call to see the landlady of the lodging where he was, when, hearing of William's illness and poverty, she went constantly to visit him, and laying aside in the shadow of death all wish for controversy, read and prayed with him in the common sympathy of their Christian faith and trust. She wrote afterwards:--

"Blessed be God that I have no doubt that the dying friend in whom I have been so deeply interested was in Christ and is now _with_ Him. We never spoke together of Romanism or Protestantism; all I cared for was to persuade him, by the help of the Holy Ghost, to accept at once the offer of a free and present salvation through our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, and through Him _only_: and to believe God's word that he that believeth on the Son of God hath everlasting life, because of His _one_ sacrifice _once_ offered for the sins of the whole world. And _he did believe it_, and false confidences faded away like shadows before the sunrise. 'Jesus only' became all his salvation and all his desire, and he passed into His presence with a radiant smile of joy. I was not with him when he died, but the hour of communing with his spirit that same evening was one of the sweetest I have spent on earth."

My sister has left some notes of that which occurred after William's death:--

"After all was over, and when the room was decorated and the body laid out, Miss Marsh came to see him, and taking his dead hand, she placed a white camellia in it. Then kneeling by the side of the bed, she offered up the most beautiful prayer aloud, in which she described as in a picture our Blessed Lord and the angels receiving his soul. It was quite wonderfully beautiful: there was only one thing she left out; she never mentioned Our Blessed Lady; she placed the angels before our Lady. I was standing at the foot of the bed with a crucifix, and when she ceased praying, I said, 'But you have never spoken of Our Lady: I cannot let Our Lady be passed over.' And Miss Marsh was not angry; no, she only rose from her knees, and coming to me, she threw her arms round my neck and said, 'Do not let us dispute upon this now; we have one God and one Saviour in common, let us rest upon these,' and she came to see me afterwards when I was ill in London.

"'Know thou that courtesy is one of God's own properties, who sendeth His rain and His sunshine upon the just and the unjust out of His great courtesy; and verily Courtesy is the sister of Charity, who banishes hatred and cherishes love.' Were not these the words of the dear S. Francis of Assisi?

"During William's illness Miss Marsh came every day with something for him, and quite stripped her own room to give him her own chair, and even her mattress. She was just the one person William wanted. Any dried-up person might have driven him back, but she was daily praying by his side, handsome, enthusiastic, dwelling only on the love of God, and she helped him on till he began really to think the love of God the only thing worth living for.

"'O sister,' he said to me once, 'if it should please God that I should live, all my life would be given up to Him.'

"The doctor who went up to him when he was told that he could not live many hours came down with tears upon his face. 'There must indeed be something in religion,' he said, 'when that young man can be so resigned to die.'"

On the Saturday after William's death my sister wrote to us:--

"Now that dear William's last call has come, I feel thankful for his sake. The good priest who attended him in all the latter part of his illness wrote to me the day after his death that I could have no cause of anxiety for his everlasting welfare. It was a beautiful death, he was so happy, peaceful, and resigned. I had only left him a _very_ short time when he again asked for Edith. She came up to his bedside, and then there seemed to come over William's face a bright light illuminating his countenance, and fixing his eyes upwards with a short sigh, he breathed his last. There was no suffering then, no agony. I had asked him if he feared death. 'No,' he said, and looked as if he wondered at the thought coming into my mind. He felt he had found the only true peace and happiness. He told me he wished to be buried at Kensal Green. His only anxiety was about poor Edith, and when I told him that I would do what lay in my power for her, he seemed satisfied, and never, I believe, gave this world another thought, but prepared to meet our Blessed Lord. That beautiful look of peace was on his face after death. Francis arrived too late to see him alive, but when he looked on William's face he said, 'Oh, sister, how beautiful!' The little room was draped with black and white. There he lay, and we were coming and going, and praying by the side of the open coffin. On Tuesday will be the funeral. On Monday the body will be removed to the Church of St. Mary of the Angels, Bayswater, where it will remain through the night, according to devout Roman custom."

After the funeral Esmeralda wrote:--

"_Ifield Lodge, Crawley._--When the long sad week was over, I felt all power of further exertion gone, and yet it seemed, as it does now, that for the soul God had taken to Himself, should the happiness of that soul not yet be perfected, prayers must be obtained, and that I must work on and on as long as life lasts. There is a feeling of longing to help in the mind of every Catholic for those departed. On Monday the 24th the dear remains were moved from Brighton by the 6 P.M.train. Auntie and I went up by the same train from Three Bridges, and Francis came to the Victoria Station to meet the coffin; but such was the heavy feeling of sorrow, that, though we were on the platform at the same time, we did not see each other.

"The next morning I went for Edith, and we arrived at the church early. The body had been placed in one of the side-chapels, and had remained there through the night. Before mass it was brought out, and remained before the high-altar during mass. There were many of William's friends present, and also Margaret Pole, now Mrs. Baker. The funeral procession formed at the door of the church. As the body was moved down the church, Edith and I followed after the officiating priests. I held Edith's hand tightly, and did not intend her to get into one of the mourning coaches, but suddenly, as the hearse moved slowly from the church door, she wrenched her hand from my grasp and was gone before I had time to speak. Four nuns went to say the responses at the grave. One was the nun who had nursed dear Mama through her last hours, and had stayed on with me in Bryanston Street. I returned from the church to the hotel, and there Auntie and Edith found me after the funeral was over.

"The funeral service in the church was very solemn, but there was no weight of gloom or sadness. The strong feeling of the safety of the soul was such a consolation, that the end for which that soul had been created had been gained, and that if it were not then in heaven, the day would come soon, and could be hastened by the prayers said for it. His dear remains rest now under the figure of Our Lady of Sorrows, which he had so wished to see erected. I never looked forward to such a deathbed for William, where there would be so much peace and love of God, and now I can never feel grateful enough for such grace granted at the eleventh hour. May we all and each have as beautiful an end and close of life. Edith says, 'Oh I wish I could see what William saw when he looked up with that bright light on his face.' With that look all suffering is blotted out of poor Edith's mind, all her long watchings.

"I can never feel grateful enough to Miss Marsh for all her kindness to William. It helped him to God, and it was very, very beautiful.... I hope still to go to Rome for the _funzione_ in June, and also to Hungary for the coronation of the Emperor."

May 1867 was passed by my sister in London, where, by her astonishing cleverness and perseverance, she finally gained the last of her lawsuits, that for the family plate, when it had been lost in three other courts. Soon after, in spite of the great heat of the summer, Esmeralda started for Rome, to be present at the canonisation of the Japanese martyrs, paying a visit to Madame de Trafford on the way. She wrote to me:--

"When I first went to Beaujour, I was afraid to tell Madame de Trafford that I intended to go to Rome. 'Mais où allez vous donc, ma chère?' said Madame de Trafford. 'Mais, Madame, je vais ... en voyage.'--'Vous allez en voyage, ça je comprends, mais ça ne répond pas à ma question: vous allez en voyage, mais il faut aller quelque part, où allez vous donc?'--'Mais, Madame, vous verrez de mon retour.'--'Mais où allez vous donc, ma chère? dites-moi, où allez vous?'--'Je vais à ... Rome!' Madame de Trafford sprang from her chair as I said this, and exclaimed, 'Rome, Rome, ce mot de Rome, Rome, Rome ... et vous allez à Rome ... moi aussi je vais à Rome,' and she went with us. From the time that Madame de Trafford determined to go, Auntie made no opposition to our going, and was quite satisfied."

The journey to Rome with Madame de Trafford was full of unusual incidents. The heat was most intense, and my sister suffered greatly from it. At Turin she was so ill that she thought it impossible to proceed, but Madame de Trafford insisted upon her getting up and going on. Whilst they were still _en route_ Madame de Trafford telegraphed to Rome for a carriage and every luxury to be in readiness. She also telegraphed to Pisa to bid M. Lamarre, the old family cook of Parisani, go to Rome to prepare for them. My sister telegraphed to Monsignor Talbot to have places reserved for the ceremonies, &c. All the last part of the way the trains were crowded to the greatest possible degree, hundreds of pilgrims joining at every station in Umbria and the Campagna, for whom no places were reserved, so that the train was delayed six or seven hours behind its time, and the heat was increased, by the overcrowding, to the most terrible pitch. My sister wrote:--

"In the carriage with us from Florence was a young Florentine noble, a Count Gondi, all of whose relations I knew. He asked me what I should do after the canonisation. 'Ça dépend, M. le Comte, si on attaquera Rome.'--'Mais, certainement on l'attaquera.'--'Eh bien, done je reste.'--'Mais vous restez, Mademoiselle, si on attaque Rome.'--'Oui, certainement.'--'Et vous, Madame,' said Count Gondi, turning to Madame de Trafford. 'Mais si on attaque Rome,' said Madame de Trafford, 'je ferais comme Mademoiselle Hare, je reste, bien sure.' His amazement knew no bounds.

"When we arrived at Rome, I was so afraid that Madame de Trafford might do something very extraordinary that I made her sleep in my room, and slept myself in the little outer room which we used to call the library, so that no one could pass through it to my room without my knowing it. The morning after we arrived she came into my room before I was up. I said, 'Mais, Madame, c'était à moi de vous rendre cette visite?'--'Laissez donc ces frivolités,' said Madame de Trafford, 'nous ne sommes pas ici pour les frivolités comme cela: parlons du sérieux; commençons.'"

The ceremonies far more than answered my sister's expectations. She entered St. Peter's with Madame de Trafford by the Porta Sta. Marta, and they saw everything perfectly. She met the Duchess Sora in the church, radiant with ecstasy over what she considered so glorious a day for Catholicism. "I _knew_ you would be here," said the Duchess; "you _could_ not have been away." The meeting was only for a moment, and was their last upon earth. "When the voices of the three choirs swelled into the dome," wrote Esmeralda, "then I felt what the Pope expressed in words, 'the triumph of the Church has begun.' When we first went into St. Peter's, Giacinta,[377] who had _felt_ I should be there, was waiting for me. 'Eccola, la figlia,' she said, 'io l'aspettava.'"

Afterwards Giacinta came to see my sister at the Palazzo Parisani. "I shall never forget the meeting of those two souls," wrote Esmeralda, "when Giacinta first saw Madame de Trafford. They had never heard of one another before: I had never mentioned Giacinta to Madame de Trafford, and she had never heard of Madame de Trafford, but they understood one another at once. Madame de Trafford passed through the room while Giacinta was talking to me, and seeing only a figure in black talking, she did not stop and passed on. Giacinta started up and exclaimed, 'Chi è?'--'Una signora,' I said. 'Quello se vede,' said Giacinta, 'ma quello non è una risposta--chi è?'--and when I told her, 'O vede un' anima,' she exclaimed. Madame de Trafford then did what I have never known her do for any other person; she looked into the room and said, 'Faites la passer dans ma chambre,' and we went in, and the most interesting conversation followed."

As she returned through Tuscany, Esmeralda had her last meeting with her beloved Madame Victoire, who had then no presentiment of the end. At Paris she took leave of Madame de Trafford, and returned to London, where she for the first time engaged a permanent home--5 Lower Grosvenor Street. The furnishing of this house was the chief occupation of the next two months, though Esmeralda began by depositing in the empty rooms a large crucifix which Lady Lothian had given her, and saying, "Now the house is furnished with all that is really important, and Providence will send the rest." A room at the top of the house was arranged as an oratory; an altar was adorned with lace, flowers, and images; a lamp burned all night long before the crucifix, and if Esmeralda could not sleep, she was in the habit of retiring thither and spending long hours of darkness in silent prayer. There also she kept the vigil of "the Holy Hour." Early every morning the Catholic household in Grosvenor Street was awakened by the sharp clang of the prayer-bell outside the oratory door.

I went to stay with my sister in August for a few days. Esmeralda was at this time looking very pale and delicate, but not ill. Though the beauty of her youth had passed away, and all her troubles had left their trace, she was still very handsome. Her face, marble pale, was so full of intelligence and expression, mingled with a sort of sweet pathos, that many people found her far more interesting than before, and all her movements were marked by a stately grace which made it impossible for her to pass unobserved. Thus she was when I last saw her, pale, but smiling her farewell, as she stood in her long black dress, with her heavy black rosary round her neck, leaning against the parapet of the balcony outside the drawing-room window.

All through the winter Esmeralda wrote very seldom. She was much occupied with her different books, some of which seemed near publication. "The Study of Truth," upon which she had been occupied ever since 1857, had now reached such enormous dimensions, that the very arrangement of the huge pile of MS. seemed almost impossible. A volume of modern American poetry was to be brought out for the benefit of the Servites, and was also in an advanced state; yet her chief interest was a collection of the "Hymns of the Early Church," obtained from every possible source, but chiefly through the aid of foreign monasteries and convents. Upon this subject she kept up an almost daily correspondence with the Padre Agostino Morini of the Servites, who was her chief assistant, especially in procuring the best translations, as the intention was that the original Latin hymn should occupy one page and that the best available translation should in every case be opposite to it: many hundreds of letters remain of this correspondence. In the autumn Esmeralda was again at Ifield Lodge, where she was persuaded into a wild scheme for building a town for the poor at Crawley. Land was bought, measurements and plans were taken, and a great deal of money was wasted, but Esmeralda fortunately withdrew from the undertaking before it was too late.

But the state of excitement and speculation in which she was now persuaded to live had a terrible effect upon Esmeralda, who had continued in a weak and nervous state ever since her hurried journey to Rome. She now found it difficult to exist without the stimulus of daily excitement, and she added one scheme and employment to another in a way which the strongest brain could scarcely have borne up against. On her return to London she threw herself heart and soul into what she called a scheme for the benefit of the "poor rich." She remembered that when she was herself totally ruined, one of her greatest trials was to see her mother suffer from the want of small luxuries in the way of food to which she had been accustomed, and that though their little pittance allowed of what was absolutely necessary, London prices placed chickens, ducks, cream, and many other comforts beyond their reach. Esmeralda therefore arranged a plan by which she had over twice a week, from certain farms in Normandy, large baskets containing chickens (often as many as eighty at a time), ducks, geese, eggs, apples, and various other articles. The prices of the farm produce in Normandy were so low, that she was able, after paying the carriage, to retail the contents of her hampers to the poor families she was desirous of assisting, besides supplying her own house, at a cost of not more than half the London prices. Many families of "poor rich" availed themselves of this help and were most grateful for it, but of course the trouble involved by so many small accounts, with the expenditure of time in writing notes, &c., about the disposition of her poultry was enormous. It was in the carrying out of this scheme that Esmeralda became acquainted with a person called Mrs. Dunlop, wife of a Protestant, but herself a Roman Catholic. Esmeralda never liked Mrs. Dunlop; on the contrary, she both disliked and distrusted her; but owing to her interesting herself in the same charities, she inevitably saw a great deal of her.

During the winter an alarming illness attacked my brother Francis. He was my brother by birth, though I had seldom even seen him, and scarcely ever thought about him. Looking back now, in the distance of years, I wonder that my Mother and I never spoke of him; but he was absolutely without any part in our lives, and we never did, till this winter, when my sister mentioned his refusing to go to live with her in Grosvenor Street, which she had hoped that he would do when she took the house, and of his putting her to the unnecessary expense of paying for lodgings for him. Here he caught cold, and one day, unexpectedly, Dr. Squires came to tell Esmeralda that he considered him at the point of death. She flew to his bedside and remained with him all through the night. As she afterwards described it, she "could not let him die, and she breathed her life into his: she was willing to offer her life for his."

After this Esmeralda wrote to us (to Rome) that the condition of Francis was quite hopeless, and that her next letter must contain the news of his death. What was our surprise, therefore, when the next letter was from Francis himself (who had never written to us before), not merely saying that he was better, but that he was going to be married immediately to a person with whom he had long been acquainted. At the time of this marriage, Esmeralda went away into Sussex, and afterwards, when she returned to London, she never consented to see Mrs. Francis Hare.

My sister's cheque-books of the last year of her life show that during that year alone her brother Francis had received £900 from her, though her income at the most did not exceed £800. He had also persuaded Esmeralda to take a house called "Park Lodge" in Paddington, with an acre and a half of garden. The rent was certainly low, and the arrangement, as intended by Esmeralda, was that her brother should live in two or three rooms of the house, and that the rest should be let furnished. But tenants never came, and Francis lived in the whole of the house, after furnishing it expensively and sending in the bills to his sister, who paid them in her fear lest anxiety about money matters might make him ill again.

At the end of March Esmeralda received a letter from Madame de Trafford, of which she spoke to Mrs. Dunlop. She said, "Madame de Trafford has written to me in dreadful distress. She says she sees me in a very dark, narrow place, where no one can ever get at me, and where no one will ever be able to speak to me any more." Esmeralda laughed as she told this, and said she supposed it referred to the prison to which Augustus said she would have to go for her extravagance; but it was the grave of which Madame de Trafford spoke.

In March, Esmeralda talked to many of her friends of her plans for the future. She said that in consequence of the expense of keeping up the house, she should be obliged to part with Grosvenor Street, and that she should go abroad--to Rome, and eventually to Jerusalem. She did more than merely form the plan of this journey. She had the dresses made which she intended to wear in the East, and for three nights she sat up arranging all her papers, and tying up the letters of her different friends in separate parcels, so that they might more easily be returned to them. To Mary Laffam, her then maid, who assisted her in this, she said, "Mary, I am going on a very, very long journey, from which I may never return, and I wish to leave everything arranged behind me."

In the beginning of May Esmeralda went with her aunt to spend three weeks in Sussex. After she returned to Grosvenor Street, she was very ill with an attack like that from which she had suffered at Dijon several years before. Having been very successfully treated then in France, she persuaded her aunt to obtain the direction of a French doctor. The remedy which this doctor administered greatly increased the malady. This was on Tuesday 19th.

On Thursday 21st my sister was so much weakened and felt so ill, that she dismissed the French doctor, and sent again for her old doctor, Squires, who came at once. He was much shocked at the change in her, and thought that she had been terribly mistreated, but he was so far from being alarmed, that he saw no reason why her house should not be let, as arranged, on the following Tuesday, to Mademoiselle Nilsson, the Swedish songstress, and said that the change would do her good.

About this time, by Esmeralda's request, my aunt wrote to tell Madame de Trafford of the illness, but she did not then express any alarm. On Saturday the good and faithful Mrs. Thorpe[378] saw Esmeralda, and was much concerned at the change in her. She remained with her for some time, and bathed her face with eau-de-Cologne. Esmeralda then took both Mrs. Thorpe's hands in hers, and said no one could do for her as she did. Mrs. Thorpe was so much alarmed at Esmeralda's manner, which seemed like a leave-taking, that she went down to our Aunt Eleanor and tried to alarm her; but she said that as long as the house could be let on Tuesday to Mademoiselle Nilsson, the doctor must be perfectly satisfied, and there could not possibly be anything to apprehend.

Sunday passed without any change except that, both then and on Saturday, whenever her brother Francis was mentioned, Esmeralda became violently agitated, screamed, and said that he was on no account to be admitted.

Father Galway was away, but on Monday Esmeralda sent for Father Eccles, and from him she received the Last Sacraments. When I asked my aunt afterwards if this did not alarm her, she said, "No, it did not, because Esmeralda was so nervous and so dreadfully afraid of dying without the Last Sacraments, that whenever she felt ill she always received them, and the doctor still assured her that all was going on well."

That night (Monday, May 25), a nun of the Misericorde sat up in the room. Aunt Eleanor went to bed as usual. At half-past four in the morning she was called. The most mysterious black sickness had come on, and could not be arrested. Dr. Squires, summoned in haste, says that he arrived exactly as a clock near Grosvenor Square struck five. He saw at once that the case was quite hopeless, still for three hours he struggled to arrest the malady. At the end of that time, Esmeralda suddenly said, "Dr. Squires, this is very terrible, isn't it?"--"Yes," he replied, throwing as much meaning as possible into his voice, "it is indeed _most_ terrible." Upon this Esmeralda started up in the bed and said, "You cannot possibly mean that you think I shall not recover?" Dr. Squires said, "Yes, I am afraid it is my duty to tell you that you cannot possibly recover now."--"But I do not feel ill," exclaimed Esmeralda; "this sickness is very terrible, but still I do not feel ill."--"I cannot help that," answered Dr. Squires, "but I fear it is my duty to tell you that it is quite impossible you can live."

"It was then," said her doctor, "that her expression lost all its anxiety. Death had no terror for her. She was almost radiant." The serenity of her countenance remained unchanged, and to her last moment she was as one preparing for a festival.

After a pause she said, "Tell me how long you think it possible that I should live." Dr. Squires said, "You might live two days, but it is quite impossible that you should live longer than that." She at once asked for writing materials, and with a firm hand, as if she were well, she wrote a telegraphic despatch bidding Madame de Trafford to come to her at once. (The office was then closed, and when it was opened, it was already too late to send the despatch.) Then Dr. Squires kindly and wisely said, "I fear you have little time to lose, and if you wish to make any changes in your will, you had better make them at once." My sister answered, "Oh, I must alter everything. I never thought it possible that I should die before my aunt, and I wish to leave things so that my death will make no difference to her." The doctor, seeing a great change coming on, was afraid to leave the room even to get a sheet of paper, and he wrote upon a scrap of paper which he picked up from the floor. My sister then made a very simple will, leaving everything to her (Protestant) aunt, Miss Paul, except her interest in Park Lodge and a chest of plate which she left to Francis, and her claims to a portrait by Sir Joshua Reynolds,[379] which she left to me.

When Esmeralda had dictated the page containing these bequests, her doctor wisely made her sign it in the presence of her servants before she proceeded to dictate anything else. Thus the first portion of her will is valid, but before she had come to the end of another page containing small legacies to the Servites, to the Nuns of the Precious Blood, &c., the power of signature had failed, and it was therefore valueless.

Esmeralda then said almost playfully, "You had better send for the Nuns of the Precious Blood, for they would never forgive me, even after all is over, if they had not been sent for," and a maid went off in a cab to fetch the Abbess Pierina. It was then that a priest arrived from Farm Street to administer extreme unction, and Dr. Squires, seeing that he could do nothing more, and that my sister was already past observing who was present, went away.

The Abbess Pierina says that she arrived at the house about nine o'clock, and saw at once that Esmeralda was dying. A priest was praying by the bedside. She remained standing at the foot of the bed for about ten minutes, then she went up to Esmeralda, who said, "I am dying." A few minutes afterwards, in a loud and clear voice, she called "Auntie," and instantly fell back and died.

Thus the day which she looked for as her Sabbath and high day came to her, and she passed to the rest beyond the storm--beyond the bounds of doubt or controversy--to the company of those she justly honoured, and of some whom she never learnt to honour here, in the many mansions of an all-reconciling world. Let us not look for the living amongst the dead. She exchanged her imperfect communion with God here for its full fruition in the peace of that Sabbath which knows no evening.

* * * * *

During the whole of the last terrible hours our poor deaf aunt was in the room, but she had sunk down in her terror and anguish upon the chair which was nearest the door as she came in, and thence she never moved. She never had strength or courage to approach the bed: she saw all that passed, but she heard nothing.

Soon after all was over, the Abbess Pierina came down to my aunt, and revealed--what none of her family had known before--that Esmeralda had long been an Oblate Sister of the Precious Blood, and she begged leave to dress her in the habit of the Order. All the furniture of the room was cleared away or draped with white, and the bed was left standing alone, surrounded night and day by tall candles burning in silver sconces, with a statue of "Our Lady of Sorrows" at the head, and at the foot the great crucifix from the oratory. Esmeralda was clothed in a long black dress, which she had ordered for her journey to Jerusalem, but had never worn, and round her waist was the scarlet girdle of the Precious Blood. On her head was a white crape cap and a white wreath, as for a novice nun.

As soon as Aunt Eleanor was able to think, she sent for her sister, Mrs. Fitz-Gerald, who arrived at 11 A.M. She, as a strong Protestant, said that she could never describe how terrible the next three days were to her. All day long a string of carriages was ceaselessly pouring up the street, and a concourse of people through the house, nuns of the Precious Blood being posted on the different landings to show them where to go. Each post brought letters from all kinds of people they had never heard of before, asking to have _anything_ as a memorial, even a piece of old newspaper which Esmeralda had touched.

On the day after we arrived at Holmhurst from Germany (Sunday 31st), I went up to try to comfort my broken-hearted aunt at the house in Grosvenor Street. The rooms in which I had last seen Esmeralda looked all the more intensely desolate from being just finished, new carpets and chintzes everywhere, only the last pane of the fernery in the back drawing-room not yet put in. My aunt came in trembling all over. It was long before she was able to speak: then she wrung her hands. "Oh, it was so sudden--it was so sudden," she said; and then she became more collected, and talked for hours of all that had passed. Those present said that for the whole of the first day she sat in a stupor, with her eyes fixed on vacancy, and never spoke or moved, or seemed to notice any one who went in or out.

The coffin was already closed, and stood in the middle of the room covered with a white pall, and surrounded by burning candles and vases of flowers. Upon the coffin lay the crucifix which both Italima and Esmeralda held in their hands when they were dying. Near it was the bed, with the mark where the head had lain still unremoved from the pillow.

On Monday afternoon there was a long wearying family discussion as to whether the remains were to be taken to Kensal Green in the evening, to remain throughout the night in the cemetery chapel. Francis insisted that it should be so. Our Aunt Fitz-Gerald declared that if it was done she would not go to the funeral, as she would not follow _nothing_. I agreed with Mrs. Fitz-Gerald, and the nuns of the Precious Blood were most vehement that the body should not be removed. Eventually, however, Francis carried his point. At 9 P.M. we all went up for the last time to the room, still draped like a chapel, where the coffin lay, covered with fresh flowers, with the great crucifix still standing at the foot between the lighted candles. Then what remained of Esmeralda was taken away.

The next day (June 2) was the funeral. At the cemetery the relations who came from the house were joined by Mr. Monteith, Lady Lothian, Lady Londonderry, Lady Georgiana Fullerton, the Abbess Pierina, and all the nuns of the Precious Blood, with several nuns of the Misericorde.

The chapel was full of people, but it is very small, and a very small part of it is used for seats. The larger part was spread with a rich crimson carpet, in the midst of which rose a kind of catafalque, upon which lay the coffin, covered with a long purple velvet pall, embroidered in golden letters--"May all the holy saints and angels receive her soul." Round this were six candles burning in very tall brass candlesticks. After the priest had gone round with the holy water and incense, a door at the east end of the church was thrown open and the pall removed, when the light poured in upon the coffin and its silver ornaments and the large silver cross lying upon it. Then we all passed out round the shrubberies to the grave, where the vault was opened just behind the beautiful seated statue of "Our Lady of Sorrows" under the cross, which Esmeralda had herself erected. Upon the coffin was engraved--

ANNE FRANCES MARIA LOUISA HARE, E. de M. (Enfant de Marie), _Oblate of the Order of the Precious Blood._ Born October 9, 1832. Died May 26, 1868.

As the priest said all the leading sentences, the nuns, with clear voice, sang the responses. The whole service occupied nearly an hour and a half. We drove home in total silence: Aunt Fitz-Gerald led Auntie into the desolate house.

Thus was my sweet sister Esmeralda taken from us--being removed from the evil to come.

"Souls of the Holy Dead! Though fancy whispers thus to musing hearts, We would not call ye back, whence ye are fled, To take your parts In the old battle-strife; or break With our heartache-- The rest which ye have won and in Christ's presence take."

XIV

THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CONSPIRACY

"Glory to Thee in Thine Omnipotence, Who dost dispense, As seemeth best to Thine unerring will The lot of victory still; Edging sometimes with might the sword unjust, And bowing to the dust The rightful cause, that so much seeming ill May Thine appointed purposes fulfil."

--SOUTHEY.

"Sprechen ist silbern, Schweigen ist golden."

--_Swiss Inscription._

"If you your lips would keep from slips, Of five things have a care: To whom you speak, of whom you speak, And how, and when, and where."

--_Old Distich._

At eleven o'clock on the morning of my sister's death, our aunt, Mrs. Fitz-Gerald, arrived in Grosvenor Street. She wrote to me afterwards:--

"When Eleanor sent for me, after I recovered the shock, I went immediately to Grosvenor Street, and the first thing I asked before going up to Eleanor was, 'Is Mr. Hare (Francis) upstairs?' The maid made answer, 'Oh, no; Miss Hare would not hear of seeing him, and forbade us to let him enter the house, declaring that he had her death to answer for.' I could not believe this statement, and I called another servant into the dining-room, who repeated exactly the same thing, saying also that things had taken place in that house which were fearful, and that they were afraid of their lives. _I_ was the innocent cause of Francis coming to sleep in the house, as I did not think it was right that Eleanor should be left alone with the dead body of your sister. I did not know till the following morning, when the servants told me, that people had been walking about the house the whole night, and that the Rev. Mother (Pierina) had forbid them to leave the kitchen, hear what they would."[380]

Upon this, and all succeeding nights until the funeral, the three maids persistently refused at night to go upstairs, saying that they had seen a spirit there, and they remained all through the night huddled up together in a corner of the kitchen. By day even they manifested the greatest terror, especially Mary Laffam, the lady's-maid, who started and trembled whenever she was spoken to, and who entreated to be allowed to go out when she heard the lawyer was coming, "for fear he should ask her any questions." If they had the opportunity, they always made mysterious hints of poison, and of Esmeralda's death having been caused by unnatural means. To the Rev. Mother Pierina, Mary Laffam said at one time that Miss Hare had told her she knew that she should die of poison.[381] All the servants constantly repeated to the Rev. Mother their conviction that Miss Hare was poisoned. They talked a great deal, especially Mary Laffam, who horrified the Abbess by saying that Miss Hare had herself said in her last moments, "I am poisoned and I die of poison."[382] In consequence of all that the servants had said to Mrs. Fitz-Gerald of their certain conviction that my sister had been poisoned, she was most anxious, before my return to England, for a post-mortem examination, but Francis violently opposed this, and he carried his point.

The opinion that my sister's death was caused by poison was shared by many of those who came to see her after death. They could not but recollect that though Dr. Squires _then_ said he believed her to have died of ulceration of the intestines, up to the day before the death he had said that she might be removed, that the house might be let, and had suggested no such impression. For two days _after_ death, black blood continued to stream from the mouth, as is the case from slow corrosive poison, and three eminent physicians, on hearing of the previous symptoms and the after appearances (Dr. Hale, Sir Alexander Taylor, and Dr. Winslow), gave it as their opinion that those were the usual symptoms and appearances induced by corrosive poison. Mrs. Baker (Marguerite Pole) wrote to me on June 24:--"The idea of poison is the one I formed the first moment I saw the body, as for some years I was practically versed in medicine, and I was at a loss how to account for various appearances in a natural way--_i.e._, from illness."

When I arrived at the house on May 31 (the death having taken place on the 26th), I found all its inmates agitated by the various reports which were going about. Mrs. Fitz-Gerald was full of a dreadful message which she believed to have been given by my dying sister to the Abbess Pierina. "When I am dead, go to my brother Francis, and tell him that he was the cause of my death, and that he will have to answer for it." This message was also repeated to me by Mrs. Baker and by Mrs. William Hare, and was always spoken of as having been given to the Rev. Mother herself. On each occasion on which I heard it spoken of, I said that the message had much better not be given to Francis, as he was in such a weak state of health that it might do him serious injury; and that probably when my sister gave it, she was in a state of semi-delirium, brought on by her extreme weakness. I entirely declined to question the servants, consequently I heard nothing directly from them, only their words as repeated by Mrs. Fitz-Gerald, and the many persons to whom the Mother Pierina had related them.

I never had any interview with or heard anything directly from Pierina herself. The reason of this was that, three days after the death, she had a violent scene with Mrs. Fitz-Gerald, who had intercepted her in the act of carrying off two large heavy silver candelabra from the oratory, and some valuable point-lace, which she had ripped off the altar-cloth and concealed in her pocket. She also took away a quantity of small articles (rosaries, crucifixes, &c.), which were afterwards returned with the more valuable articles by order of Monsignor Paterson, who wrote to express his extreme grief and annoyance at her conduct. My own impression still is that Pierina was a simple and devout character, who would not willingly do anything she believed to be wrong, but that she was really convinced (as she said) that it was a duty to take away these things, which had been dedicated to the service of a Roman Catholic altar, in order to prevent their being applied to secular uses in a Protestant household. After this, however, which occurred before my arrival, the Abbess Pierina was never allowed to return to the house, so that I never saw her.

Immediately after the death, all the small articles in my sister's room had been hastily removed, in order that the room might be draped with white, and to give it as much as possible the appearance of a chapel. On the day before the funeral, I saw Mrs. Fitz-Gerald, who was in the inner drawing-room, after opening a davenport and looking into a blotting-book, suddenly burst into tears. "Oh," she said, "the whole mystery is revealed now; it is all quite plain; you may see what it was that killed your sister," and she held up a letter from Francis, written on the Friday evening before her death--a cruel letter, telling her in the harshest terms that she was totally ruined, that she might sell her house and her plate, and all else that she possessed, for she had nothing whatever left to live upon; but that, as he did not wish her to starve, she and her aunt might come to live _with his wife_. This letter Esmeralda must have received on Saturday morning, soon after writing the affectionate note to Francis, which was read afterwards at Guildford in proof of the happy terms on which she was living with him. But it was her peculiar habit, when she was ill or suffering, to put letters aside, whoever they might be from, and not to read them till she felt better; it is therefore quite possible that she did not open this letter till Monday, when it gave the fatal blow. This was my impression at the time, and then and always afterwards, when others spoke of poison, I said, "There were strange signs of poison, and many people think she was poisoned, but it is my firm conviction that she did not die of poison, but of _a broken heart_--_a heart broken by her brother Francis_."

On the 6th of June I spent the whole morning in the office of my sister's solicitor examining accounts and papers, and the afternoon at Coutts' Bank to find out what was left. The result of the investigation was to show that in October my sister possessed £12,000 clear, besides a great quantity of plate, diamonds, and other valuables, and the house in Grosvenor Street paid for and clear from debt, as well as the property in the Palazzo Parisani at Rome. At the time of her death she possessed, interest and principal combined, £216, and debts to a considerable amount, while the diamonds and plate seemed to have disappeared without leaving a trace behind them.

Several days afterwards, while I was taking an envelope out of the envelope-box on the table, I saw a bit of bluish paper sticking up between the partitions of the box. I absently poked it up with a paper-knife, and then found that it was a pawn-ticket from Attenborough for £120 upon diamonds. Turning out a quantity of old _Times_ from a cupboard, I afterwards found there a pawn-ticket for £100 upon plate; later I found a third ticket for £82 upon some diamond earrings. Attenborough told me that Francis had brought his sister there at different times and placed the plate and diamonds in pawn.

Whilst I was still in Grosvenor Street, many of my sister's Catholic friends came to see me. Mrs. Montgomery came three times. I had never liked her, and had greatly deprecated my sister's intimacy with her, but in the presence of what I believed to be a common grief I could not refuse to receive her, and she was apparently most sympathising and even affectionate. The second time she came she sat by me on the sofa and spoke of Esmeralda's death as making a blank in her whole future life. She said what a comfort and happiness it would be to her if she were ever able to be of use to me in any way,--in any way to supply the place of her I had lost.... Yet ten days after![383]

Mrs. Dunlop came several times. On June 8 she would not get out of her carriage, but begged me to come down to her and speak to her in it. She then said, "Now I know you would not speak of these things to any one else, but you _know_ you may trust me: now do tell me, was it not most extraordinary that Francis should, in spite of her forbidding him, force his way into his sister's house just upon the one day on which he knew his aunt was away? Now of course you would not speak of this to every one, but Esmeralda loved me as a sister. You _know_ you may trust me." She went on very long in the same strain. At last I was so shocked that I got up and said, "Mrs. Dunlop, I see what you _wish_ me to say. You _wish_ me to say that I think my brother poisoned my sister. Recollect that _I do not think so_. I distinctly think that he was the cause of her death, but I think that she died of a broken heart," and so saying I left her.

In the face of this Mrs. Dunlop afterwards asserted that I had told her that Francis poisoned my sister. In fact, I shall always believe that the whole of the poisoning story, as it appeared at the trial which ensued, originated, sprung up, and fructified with Mrs. Dunlop, the most unscrupulous of the conspirators concerned. "Where the devil cannot go, he sends an old woman," is an old German proverb.

* * * * *

On June 9 I received a letter from my adopted mother's niece, Mary Stanley, saying that some friends had come up to her at a party, and spoken of the cruel way in which Mr. (Francis) Hare had been treated by his Protestant relations. When she asked an explanation, they said that Mrs. Montgomery had asserted (it was at Lord Denbigh's) that the doors of the house in Grosvenor Street were forcibly closed upon Mr. and Mrs. Francis Hare during Miss Hare's illness, and that she was influenced in her last moments to cancel a will in which she had left all her money to her brother Francis; also that neither Francis nor his wife were then allowed to enter the house or to see their aunt, and that they had nothing to live upon, owing to their having been disinherited by Miss Hare, who supported them during her life. Mary Stanley, a Roman Catholic, shocked at such falsehoods promulgated by a member of her own creed, and seeing the discredit it was likely to bring upon her party, strongly urged my writing to Mrs. Montgomery, who had professed such intimate friendship for me, stating that I had heard such a report was circulated, though not by whom, and after putting her in possession of the facts, as my sister's dearest friend, urging her to contradict it.

Having an inward distrust of Mrs. Montgomery, and a shrinking from any communication with her, I did not then write as Mary Stanley wished.

On June 11 Mary Stanley came down to Holmhurst, and again vehemently urged my writing to Mrs. Montgomery in defence of Miss Paul. On June 12 I yielded to her repeated solicitations, and wrote--Mary Stanley and my adopted mother looking over the letter and approving it sentence by sentence. When it was finished, Mary Stanley said, "That letter is perfect: you must not alter a word: it could not be better." The letter was as follows:--

"_Holmhurst, June 13, 1868._--Dear Mrs. Montgomery, I have heard on good authority that a report has been circulated in London to the effect that the doors were perfectly closed upon Mr. and Mrs. Francis Hare during Miss Hare's illness, and that she was influenced in her last moments to cancel a will in which she had left all her money to her brother Francis; also that neither Francis nor his wife are now allowed to enter the house or to see their aunt, and that they have nothing to live upon, owing to their being disinherited by Miss Hare, who supported them during her life.

"As it is a pity that this impression should be allowed to gain ground, and as you were latterly the most intimate friend my dearest sister possessed, I venture to put you in possession of the facts.

1. "In her previous will my sister had not even mentioned Francis' name. She had left £4000 to me, a very large legacy to Lady G. Fullerton, legacies to other friends, and the remainder to her aunt. Francis was not even alluded to.

2. "Francis was not allowed to see my sister during the last days of her life at her own especial request: the very mention of his name made her scream with horror. In her last moments she left a solemn message with the Superior of the Precious Blood, to be given him after her death. This message was of so terrible a kind that, owing to Francis' critical state of health and the uncertainty of his life, he has hitherto been spared the pain of hearing it.

3. "Francis and his wife are _not_ allowed, by the lawyer's direction, to see my aunt until the whole terrible story of my sister's sudden death is cleared up. In the month of November, besides Grosvenor Street, bought and paid for, she possessed £12,000 in money; when she died she was absolutely penniless, except £216, interest and principal combined, and she was overwhelmed with debts. There is no trace of any part of her fortune except of £2000 which was lost on the Stock Exchange through brokers to whom Francis introduced her.

4. "My dear sister's accounts at Coutts' show only too clearly that Francis had the greater part of her income. He will henceforward receive _nothing_ from his aunt, who is totally ruined, and will scarcely have enough left to buy daily bread, as £2400 of her own little fortune is gone owing to signatures which Francis persuaded her to give.

"I am sure you will forgive my troubling you thus far with our family affairs, but I am certain that many, knowing your intimacy with my sister, may ask you for information, and I wish you to be in a position to give it. Believe me yours very truly,

"AUGUSTUS J. C. HARE."

In writing this letter, I had no idea of the significance which it might be made possible to attribute to the sentence No. 3--"Until the whole story of my sister's sudden death is cleared up." My own mind dwelt entirely and fixedly upon the impression that my sister's terribly sudden death was caused by the cruel shock of Francis' ungrateful letter coming to her in her weak state. To have it cleared up would be in my mind to have it clearly ascertained that she was poisoned, as most people believed, because in that case it would be certain that Francis might be held guiltless of her death, since--putting other reasons aside--he had never once been allowed to enter the house during the last days of the illness, and therefore _could_ have nothing to do with it.

The statements about the money were perfectly correct; my sister's solicitor vouched for them. I believed all the other statements to be correct also, for I wrote them, not upon what I had heard from one person, but from what I had heard repeatedly and from many. I did not know till long afterwards that "the message" was not given _by my sister_ herself to the Superior of the Precious Blood, but that the Superior had received it through the servants. It will be borne in mind that I had never myself seen the Superior, except in the group of mourners round the grave.

It was not till after I had written the letter to Mrs. Montgomery that I was able to read all the details of my sister's former will, annulled upon her death-bed. All that I had said and more than that was true. The will was of great length and detail, but Francis was not even alluded to. It began by leaving £4000, the family diamonds, miniatures, and plate, with various other valuables, to me, but it also left me residuary legatee. There was a legacy of £4000 to Lady Georgiana Fullerton, or, if she were dead, to her husband, Alexander Fullerton; £200 to Lady Lothian; £200 to Mr. and Mrs. Theodore Galton; £200 to Father Galway--in all about £5000 to Roman Catholics. Besides these, there were considerable legacies to Victoire, to Flora Limosin and her daughter, to Clémence Boissy,[384] and £200 annuity to her aunt. There were small legacies to various nuns--Serafina della Croce, Pierina of the Precious Blood, the "Saint of St. Peter's," &c.

From the virulence and avarice afterwards displayed by the Roman Catholics, and by the fact of their bringing an action to get the exact sum, £5000, we could only conclude that they had discovered that my sister had originally left them that sum and that they determined to extort it from the Protestant part of the family, in spite of the fact that she had really left _nothing_, so that even the last will was valueless, and that, if it had not been so, I should have been the chief sufferer, having been residuary legatee under the old will.[385]

In less than a week from the time of my sending the letter to Mrs. Montgomery, I received one from a lawyer, who had long been mixed up with Francis' affairs, stating that unless I at once withdrew and apologised for every part of that letter, an action for libel would be brought against me. Knowing that Francis was utterly insolvent, my family and I treated this as an idle threat, and declining any correspondence with the person in question, referred him to my solicitor. Mrs. Montgomery and Mrs. Dunlop had persuaded Francis to these proceedings, and Mrs. Montgomery had at once begun to stir up strife by taking the letter to him.

On hearing what had happened, Mary Stanley wrote:--

"_July_ 16, 9 A.M.--You may imagine that my indignation is boundless. I can scarcely believe it. There must be some mistake, because there is no _sense_ in it. _You_ were not in England when the will was made: it is Miss Paul, if any one, from whom they ought to extort money, if they wish it.

"2 P.M.--All morning I have been out in your service. I went first to Farm Street, to see if I could see any of the priests who knew anything of the matter, but only two were in, who knew nothing. Then I went to Lady G. Fullerton, she was out; to Lady Lothian, she was out; then to find out Monsignor Paterson's direction, and happily I found _it_ and _him_. I wish you could have heard all he said. The _moment_ I mentioned the name principally concerned he stopped me--'You need say no more; I can believe _anything_ of that person.' _Nothing_ could be stronger than his words about her.... He was just as indignant at the whole transaction as you and I are. He said Francis, finding all else fail, was now trading on his faith. The Abbess Pierina had told him _all_ that your sister said on her deathbed, and Monsignor Paterson desired me to say that you had only to command his services, and he would keep _her_ to her words."

Meanwhile the action for libel was declared, an action which openly avowed its object, to extort £5000. Meanwhile, also, it was found that Mr. and Mrs. Monteith of Carstairs had joined the conspirators, and were hand in hand with Mrs. Dunlop and Mrs. Montgomery. Soon after I reached home, Mrs. Monteith had written to me, expressing her great devotion to my sister's memory, and begging me to send all the sad details connected with her death. I answered to the effect that those who were present could better tell the story of my sister's death. Had I written to Mrs. Monteith, doubtless my letter to _her_ would have been used in the action, instead of that which I wrote, when I fell into the more skilful trap laid by Mrs. Montgomery. The Monteiths before this were intimate friends of mine. I had spent a week at Carstairs in the preceding October. With Francis they were previously unacquainted. Therefore it could have been only the interests of their Church which incited them to the course they pursued.

On the 18th of July Mary Stanley wrote:--

"At last I have got into the enemy's camp. I found Mrs. Dunlop this morning, and for an hour heard her version, and was aghast at the violence with which she spoke. I am very glad I have seen her, because it gives me a fresh insight into the state of things. She said Francis himself was absolutely passive, and allowed his friends to act for him; that he was now living on charity, and of course his friends must defray the cost of prosecution.

"She also said that Mrs. Montgomery's letter was used for the prosecution only because it happened to be more convenient than Mrs. Dunlop's evidence. They were _resolved to prosecute you_.

"I was so afraid of doing mischief, I scarcely knew what to say, but the general point I urged was that I had heard from a Catholic priest to whom I had spoken on the subject that the accusation of poison originated with the Abbess, _who had told my informant_ that Miss Hare had said so _to her_!--and that my informant was ready to hold her to these words."

I do not think that any words could describe my misery at this time--"battered and fretted into great sorrow of heart," as Carlyle would say. It was naturally of far more consequence to _me_ than to any one else to screen the miserable Francis, whom I _alone_ had cared for and helped during the long years of his prison life, and who was now--as a last resource--consenting to extort what was equivalent to hush-money from me--either hush-money to save the family from the exposure of his own past life, or a provision for life from the Roman Catholic conspirators, if they were successful in the scheme to which he lent himself. Yet I possessed nothing, and even if I could have brought myself to let the Roman Catholics so far triumph, I could not have allowed my adopted mother to impoverish herself by the purchase of their silence. And all the time there was the unutterable weariness of contradicting all the false reports, of making over and over again the statement that if my sister were poisoned, _then_ Francis, who had never seen her during her illness, was innocent of her death, but that if she were _not_ poisoned, then the moral cause of it must be attributed to him; and mingled through the whole were silent bursts of indignant misery over the cruel sufferings which Esmeralda had undergone, and the calumnious falsehood of her friends, with anguish over her so recent death.

* * * * *

When it became quite evident that the only real object of the conspiracy was to extort money from me, because I was supposed to be, as Mrs. Dunlop expressed it, "the richest of the family," I did all I could to save family scandal by offering to withdraw the letter to Mrs. Montgomery altogether. My solicitor made every possible offer on my part, but was always answered that they must have "pecuniary compensation,"--in fact, it was always made a question of buying back the letter to Mrs. Montgomery. The conspirators, as Mrs. Dunlop said, were "resolved to prosecute," and wished to use the letter to Mrs. Montgomery because "it was more convenient to use than anything else." They would listen to nothing, consider nothing. Is it not Whyte-Melville who says, "I never knew but one woman who could understand reason, and she wouldn't listen to it?"

When we knew that the trial was inevitable, we did what we could to prepare for it. I was strongly advised to put the case entirely into the hands of my sister's solicitor, who was already acquainted with all the dark page of Francis' past life, rather than to give it to my adopted mother's respectable, old-fashioned solicitor, who was totally unacquainted with it. I afterwards regretted this course, as the one remark made by the latter, "that the Abbess should _now_ be allowed to deliver her message," showed greater perspicuity than anything which was done by the former. He, on the contrary, insisted that there should be no communication at all with Pierina till just before the trial, and begged that I would not see her at all; he also allowed himself entirely to lose sight of the servants, in spite of my repeated entreaties. His plan seems to have consisted in ferreting out all the proofs of what Francis' conduct had been for many years past, and of the way in which he preyed upon his sister during the last year of his life, as shown by his own letters and my sister's accounts, which were in our hands.

In the "declaration of the action for libel" it was set forth as the necessary "injury" that it had caused Francis to be avoided by all his friends and acquaintances. Upon this we sued for particulars. Francis returned a list of the persons whom he declared to have been led to avoid him--"Mrs. Montgomery, Mrs. Dunlop, Mr. Monteith, Mrs. Monteith, Marchioness of Lothian, and Miss Bowles," a list which included the very persons (several of whom he had not known before) who were at that time in constant communication with him, and were bringing on and subscribing for the action, which was nominally on his behalf. On Tuesday, July 28, the Roman Catholic lawyer asked permission to fix the day for the trial. This courtesy was not refused. He fixed the day instantly and summoned his witnesses, but he did not let us know till Saturday, August 1, that the trial was to be on Monday, August 3, when, owing to the want of a London post on Sunday, it was most difficult, almost impossible, to summon the witnesses on our side.

On Friday, July 31, my acting solicitor went to Monsignor Paterson and took down his deposition as to Pierina's account to him of the death-bed. Monsignor Paterson then deposed that "the message" had been given by my sister in the form already described, and that my sister had also said she was "poisoned, and knew that she died of poison." Upon receiving this evidence, my solicitor naturally felt sure of his cause. He then went to see the Abbess Pierina in Mecklenburgh Square, when, to his utter amazement, she totally denied ever having received the message; but (being terrified by threats as to the "legal consequences" which might accrue to her) she did not _then_ say that the message had been given to the servants and by them delivered to her to give to Francis.

On Saturday afternoon, August 1, Monsignor Paterson again saw Pierina, and, to _his_ amazement, was informed that the message which he had so positively declared to have been given to the Abbess was not what Miss Hare said to her, but what Miss Hare had said to the maids, who had told her. Monsignor Paterson wrote this immediately to my solicitor, who (owing to the want of London post on Sunday) only received it in court.

On Saturday, August 1, the announcement came that the trial would take place at Guildford on Monday the 3rd. On Monday morning Mary Stanley and I drove early to the Waterloo station to go down to Guildford. There were so many passengers for the trial that a special train was put on. At the station I was close to Mr. Monteith, who had come from Scotland to represent his wife, and young Gerard, who was to open the prosecution, but there was no speech between us. Sir Alexander Taylor went down with us, and at Guildford we were joined by many other friends.

The heat of that day was awful, a broiling sun and not a breath of air. We had a little room to meet in at the hotel. Almost immediately I was hurried by my solicitor to the room where our senior counsel, the great Hawkins, was breakfasting at the end of a long table. He complained of the immense mass of evidence he had had to go through. He said--what I knew--that such a trial must expose terrible family scandals--that it would be a disgrace not to snatch at any chance of bringing it to a close--that probably the judge would give it for private investigation to some other Queen's counsellor--that, in fact, it was never likely to _be_ a trial.

When I came down from Mr. Hawkins, Mary Stanley and I were taken to court. There were so many cases to be tried, that ours could not come on for some time. As Leycester Penrhyn was there, who was chairman of the Quarter Sessions at Guildford, we were given places on the raised daïs behind the judge, and there we all sat waiting through many hours. In that intensely hot weather, the court-house, with its high timber roof and many open windows, was far cooler than the outer air, and we did not suffer from the heat. But the judge, Baron Martin, whom I have heard described as far more at home on a racecourse than on the judgment-seat, was suffering violently from diarrhœa, was most impatient of the cases he had to try, and at last snatched his wig from his head and flung it down upon the ground beside him.

About three o'clock in the afternoon we were assured that it was quite impossible our case could be brought on that day, as there were still so many others to be tried, and we were advised to go out and rest. So Mary Stanley and I went back to the hotel and remained there in a cool room. Presently, to our horror, a messenger came running down from the court and said, "Your case is on, and has been on twenty minutes already." We rushed to the court and found the whole scene changed. All the approaches to the court were crowded, literally choked up with witnesses and Roman Catholic spectators. The court itself was packed to overflowing. As I was hurried through the crowd, I recognised the individuals forming the large group of figures immediately behind the judge. There were Pierina of the Precious Blood and her attendant nuns in their long black veils and scarlet girdles; there, in her quaint peaked head-dress, was the nun of the Misericorde who had watched through the illness; there was the burly figure of Mr. Monteith; the sallow face of Mrs. Dunlop; her husband the Admiral; Mrs. Montgomery, beautiful still; Lady Lothian in her deep mourning and looking very sad at being subpœnaed, which was a terrible pain to her; Dr. Squires, Mr. Seyer, and Miss Bowles.

When I was brought in, all seemed to be confusion, every one speaking at once; Mr. Hawkins was in vain trying to put in a word, the judge was declaiming that he would have an end of the trial, whilst Serjeant Parry for the prosecution was in a loud voice reading the letter to Mrs. Montgomery and giving his comments upon it.

The proceedings had commenced by the judge saying that he considered the case one which it would be most undesirable to discuss in a public court; and suggesting, indeed trying to enforce, that it should be left to the arbitration of some friend of the family. Repeatedly Baron Martin urged the expediency of a private investigation, saying that he "felt it his duty to make the suggestion, and that he thought the learned counsel (Parry) might act upon it." But the lawyers for the opposition refused any compromise whatever, for they knew what the evidence of Pierina and the servants was to be.

Serjeant Parry then opened his speech by describing between whom the action was taking place. He drew a picture of the nominal prosecutor's life in which he dwelt on "the brilliant examination at Sandhurst," but touched lightly upon the time which he had passed in the gaieties both of the Continent and of this country, after which he became "not embarrassed, but reduced in circumstances." He then said that Esmeralda had recently had a tolerable fortune, and was doubtless "supposed at her death to be in possession of it, but she was not, for she entered into speculations which had proved unsuccessful, so that she died a comparatively poor woman." He then described the death-bed will. He asserted that the only cause of the death was inflammation of the bowels. He then said that he should proceed to read the letter, "supplementing it with evidence to prove that the defendant was actuated by the wickedest malice."

It was at this point that we arrived in court. When a little silence was obtained, Parry began to read the letter, and having concluded the first sentence, said, "When the defendant states that a report has been circulated in London, &c., he states a deliberate falsehood. No such report ever was heard by him, and I will not say it is the effect of his imagination, it is simply an invention for the purpose of damaging the character of his brother."[386]

Serjeant Parry then read the paragraph saying that in the first will Francis was not even alluded to. "I have reason to believe that this also is totally false," he said, and that with the will itself lying open upon the table before him.

Parry passed over the third paragraph of the letter, without any criticism except an absolute denial, but he read a note written by my sister before she received Francis' fatal letter, in proof of the affectionate terms on which they were living. That the "mention of his name made her scream with horror," he declared to be utterly false, and he asserted (for the first time stating facts) that the Abbess Pierina would deny that any message was given by my sister to _her_. Finally, Parry denied that there was any truth in the statement that Francis had received money from his sister, beyond the sum of £300.

As Serjeant Parry concluded his speech, Mrs. Montgomery was called into the witness-box. While the preliminary questions were being put to her, the confusion in court increased; a letter was brought in to Mr. Harrison and handed on by him to Mr. Hawkins. It was the letter from Monsignor Paterson, written on Saturday evening, which announced that Pierina would deny and belie the deposition he had made. Immediately Mr. Hawkins turned round to me and said, "Our cause has received a fatal blow; the Abbess Pierina is about to deny all the evidence she has given before--deny all that she has said to Monsignor Paterson, and will swear that your sister's death-bed passed in total silence, save for the single word 'Auntie,' and under these circumstances it is perfectly useless to go on; our antagonists will get the money they long for; for money is all they really care for."--"But," I said, "we can bring endless persons and Monsignor Paterson's own deposition to prove what the Abbess's former statements have been."--"No," said Mr. Hawkins, "you cannot bring a witness to prove a witness."--"But," I said, "we can prove every other part of the letter."--"That will do no good," said Mr. Hawkins; "if you fail in proving a single point, you fail in proving the whole, and the Roman Catholics will get the money; besides, you cannot prove every other part of the letter, for where is the maid, Mary Laffam?--she is not here." And in truth, Mary Laffam (whose evidence was all-important, who was to swear to the screaming at the very mention of Francis' name, who was constantly present during the illness) was mysteriously missing, and no trace of her could then be found. Two days afterwards she was traced, and it was discovered that she had been sent abroad by the Roman Catholic confederates to be out of the way--sent by them to the Augustinian Abbey of Charentan in France.

During the discussion which was now taking place, the utmost excitement prevailed in court. Almost every one stood up. Mr. Hawkins urged--"Are your adopted family prepared to pay what the Roman Catholics claim?"--"Certainly not."--"Then you must submit to a verdict."--"I leave it in your hands." So I wrote on a bit of paper, "Say no more than this. I withdraw anything that may be legally taken as _libellous_ in the letter to Mrs. Montgomery." Then the group opened, and Mr. Hawkins again stood up and said that he was in a position to withdraw the letter--if it contained any libellous statements to apologise for them. At the same time "his client could not submit to be told that he had either acted maliciously or invented anything: he was absent from England at the time of his sister's death, and had throughout acted entirely upon information he had received from those upon the spot."

"I will have an end of this, gentlemen," exclaimed the judge--"I give a verdict for forty shillings."

"Make it ten guineas, my Lord," shouted the Roman Catholic lawyer, who had previously interrupted Serjeant Parry by saying "We will have money, we will have money." "There shall be an end of this, gentlemen," said the judge; "I give a verdict for forty shillings," and he walked out of court. And so this painful ordeal came to an end. It was not till afterwards that I was aware that the verdict of forty shillings obliged me to pay the costs of both sides--£199 to my lawyer, and £293 to the Roman Catholic lawyer, which was afterwards reduced by a taxing-master to £207, 9s. 1d.

As soon as we left the court and returned to the hotel, our solicitor came in, and, before all those of our family who were present, declared how, by my desire, he had repeatedly offered to withdraw the letter to Mrs. Montgomery, but how money was always demanded as its price, and how money was proved throughout to be the only real object of those who brought the action. In looking back, therefore, upon the whole of this terrible affair, I only see three ways in which the trial could have been avoided:--

1. If Miss Stanley had had the courage to go openly to Mrs. Monteith and Lady Lothian, and say boldly that she, a Roman Catholic, was the cause of my writing the letter to Mrs. Montgomery; that as to the "report," I acted entirely and exclusively on information which she gave; that at first I had hesitated to do as she wished, but that she had continued to urge it; and that she, a Catholic, had looked over the letter before it was sent, and begged me not to alter a word of it.

2. If my solicitor had acted upon the one piece of advice given by Mr. Phelps, and weeks before the trial had requested Pierina to deliver her "message," we should then have known that the message was not given to her except through the medium of the servants, and therefore that by English law the wording of the letter was indefensible.

3. If my solicitor had been less supine in summoning witnesses--if he had at once subpœnaed Mary Laffam and the other maids on our side, and had also summoned my Aunt Fitz-Gerald, who would have been willing and glad to give her evidence, and whose very appearance would have made Francis shrink from allowing the Roman Catholic confederacy to continue the trial.

Mary Stanley and I went early to the Guildford station to wait for the train which was to take us back to London. We had not been long on the platform before all the Roman Catholic party emerged upon it. I went at once to meet and _pass_ them, thinking it better at once to establish the terms on which we were to remain through life. The Mother Pierina alone lingered behind the rest, and, with streaming eyes and outstretched hands, came towards me. "Oh, I thought it would have been for peace," she said. I could not refuse to take her hand, when Mr. Monteith, turning round, roughly seized her by the shoulder and led her away, saying, "Reverend Mother, I must insist that you do not speak to that ... _person_." Afterwards, when she was entering the railway carriage after the others, Mrs. Dunlop seized Pierina and pushed her out of the carriage, almost throwing her down upon the platform, and slammed the carriage-door in her face. Admiral Dunlop immediately forced his wife to get out of the carriage and apologise to the Reverend Mother. I did not know till long afterwards the reason of Mrs. Dunlop's violence, which was the persistence with which Pierina throughout that day had dwelt upon the wicked unfairness of having the trial in the absence of Mary Laffam, who was the witness really responsible for all that had been said. On August 19 Mary Stanley wrote to me:--

"Yesterday I saw Sister Pierina. She said how extremely grieved she had been for you. She said the lawyer on the Catholic side read the evidence to all the party at Guildford, and that she then expressed her dissent, saying that it was not in accordance with what Mary Laffam had said to her and others, and that in justice to you, she, Laffam, ought to be present. All through that day (which she said was most dreadful to her) she asserted and reasserted this, and that you were not fairly dealt with, and to me she complained sadly of the un-christian spirit in which the affair had been carried on: Mrs. Dunlop, she said, was _far_ the worst.

"Pierina denies _nothing_. She could only say, when asked about the message, that none was given directly to _her_, and that to her your sister had only said, 'Tell Francis that he has been the cause of my death.' She was forbidden to say to whom the message was given. So far from going over to the other side, she was at war with them the whole day, and told me she did not believe any of that party would ever come near her again; and I met Monsignor Paterson on Sunday, who told me that Mrs. Dunlop had been to him to complain bitterly of her."

Afterwards the feeling of the conspirators, especially of Mrs. Dunlop and Mrs. Montgomery, became so violent against the Mother Pierina (on account of her persisting in the injustice of the trial), that they not only stopped their own subscriptions to her charities, but induced others to do so, and eventually, by the interest of Mr. Monteith with Monsignor Talbot and other Roman authorities, they brought about her recall and persecuted her out of England altogether.

On August 7, Monsignor Paterson wrote a long letter to Mary Stanley, explanatory of his conduct in the affair. It contained the following remarkable passage:--

"A day or two after Miss Hare's death, which took me quite by surprise, I went to her house, and there saw Sister Pierina, who told me she had been summoned, and found Miss Hare actually dying; that she seemed very suffering, and had some difficulty in resigning herself to the will of God. I remember also hearing that she expressed distress at some conduct on the part of Mr. Francis Hare, and I thought that other expressions used implied a suspicion on her part of some kind of _foul play_. Of course, had I taken this _au sérieux_, it would have made a great impression, but I set it down, after a moment's reflection, as a random (perhaps almost delirious) expression, such as people who are very ill sometimes use with very little meaning at all."

Strange certainly that an eminent Roman Catholic priest should call at his friend's house, hear that she had died suddenly, and that she had said on her death-bed that she died from "foul play," and yet be able so easily to dismiss the subject from his mind!

Soon after the trial I wrote a long account of the whole proceedings to Archbishop Manning. His answer was very kind but very evasive--"Miss Hare's death was most sad ... the trial must have been most painful," he "sympathised deeply," &c., but without giving a direct opinion of any kind.

It was not till some months later that I became acquainted with a secret which convinced me that, though my sister's end was probably hastened by the conduct of her brother Francis, yet poison was the original cause of her death. When we next visited Pisa, Madame Victoire told me how, when my sister was a little girl of six years old at Paris, she and her own little girl, Victoria Ackermann, were sitting on two little stools doing their needlework side by side. Suddenly there was a terrible outcry. Little Anna Hare had swallowed her thimble. The whole house was in consternation, doctors were summoned in haste, the child was given emetics, was held upside down, everything was done that could be done to bring the thimble back, but it was too late. Then the doctors inquired what the thimble was like, and on seeing the thimble of the little Victoria, who had received one at the same time, were satisfied that it was not dangerous, as the thimble being of walnut-wood, would naturally dissolve with time, and they gave medicines to hasten its dissolution. But, in the midst of the confusion, came Mrs. Large, the nurse, who confessed with bitter tears that, owing to her folly, the thimble was not what it was imagined to be. She had not liked to see the child of the mistress with the same thimble as the child of the maid, and had given little Anna one with a broad band which looked like gold but was really copper. When the doctors heard this, the accident naturally assumed a serious aspect, and they redoubled their efforts to bring back the thimble. But everything failed; the wooden thimble dissolved with time, but the copper band remained. Gradually, as Esmeralda grew stronger, the accident was forgotten by all but her mother, Mrs. Large, and Madame Victoire, who observed from time to time, in childish illnesses of unusual violence, symptoms which they alone could recognise, but which were such as would arise through slight injury from poison of verdigris. As my sister grew, the copper ring grew also, attenuated to the minutest thread, but encircling her body. From time to time she was seriously affected by it, but her mother could not bear it to be spoken of, and her repulsion for the subject communicated itself to Esmeralda herself. She was warned to evade a damp climate or the use of vegetables. When she was seized with her violent illness at Dijon, the symptoms were all such as would be caused by poison of verdigris. She then went to Pisa, where Madame Victoire was alarmed by what she heard, and insisted upon the best advice being procured, and a medical examination. The doctors who saw her, even then spoke to Madame Victoire of her state as very serious, and requiring the most careful watching. When Esmeralda went to Rome to the canonisation in the summer of 1867, she returned by Pisa. The faithful Madame Victoire then sent for a famous medical professor of the University of Bologna to meet her, and insisted upon her being examined by him. He afterwards told Madame Victoire privately that though, by intense care, Miss Hare might live for many years, her life, in case of accident, hung on a thread, and that it was highly improbable that she would live long, for that the copper ring was beginning to tell very seriously upon her constitution, and that when she died it would probably be suddenly of black sickness, with every appearance of poison--poison of verdigris. And so it was.

* * * * *

One of the principal actors in the scene at Guildford was soon after called to account before a higher tribunal than any that earth can afford. On the 18th of November (1868) I received (at Rome), to my great surprise, a letter from Madame Flora Limosin, of the Hôtel de Londres at Pisa (Victoire's youngest daughter), saying that Francis was about to arrive there from Hyères. He had been sent away from England some time before, having then £80 in his possession. Whether this sum was obtained by a Roman Catholic subscription, I have never been able to learn, but from this time the Roman Catholic conspirators ceased to help him: he had failed as the instrument for which they required him, and they now flung him aside as useless. His folly at Guildford, in lending himself to their designs, had also alienated the whole of his own family, even to the most distant degrees of relationship. Not knowing where to turn, he could only think of two persons who would receive him in his destitution. His mother's faithful maid Madame Victoire and her daughter Flora were still living at Pisa, and to them, when he had only £20 left, he determined to make his way. On landing at Spezia, though even then in a dying state, he would not enter a hotel, because he felt that if he entered it he would never have strength to leave it again, and he sat for hours upon his luggage on the platform of the station till the train started. For the sake of their old companionship in childhood, and of the kindness she had received from my father, Flora Limosin not only received Francis, but also the person to whom he was married, and gave them some quiet rooms opening upon the garden of the Hôtel de Londres, where he was nursed by the faithful friends of his infancy.[387] He was attended by Padre Pastacaldi, who administered to him the last offices of the Church, and says that he died penitent, and sent me a message hoping that I forgave him for all that had passed at Guildford. He died on the 27th of November, utterly destitute, and dependent upon the charity of his humble friends. He was buried by them in a corner of the Campo Santo at Pisa, near their own family burial-place, where the letters F. H. in the pavement alone mark the resting-place of Francis George Hare, the idolised son of his mother.[388]

XV

LAST YEARS WITH THE MOTHER

"Nothing but the infinite pity is sufficient for the infinite pathos of human life."--JOHN INGLESANT.

"Never here, for ever there, Where all parting, pain, and care, And death, and time shall disappear-- For ever there, but never here! The horologe of Eternity Sayeth this incessantly,-- Forever--never! Never--forever!"

--LONGFELLOW.

"Dic nobis ... Quid vidisti in via? ... Gloriam vidi Resurgentis."

--_From the Paschal Mass._

"C'est une âme qui se racconte dans ces volumes: '_Autrefois, aujourd'hui_.' Un abîme les sépare, le tombeau."--VICTOR HUGO.

The autumn of 1868 was indeed filled for me with utter misery and "weariness of spirit." If it were not that my dear Mother had gone hand and hand with me through the terrible time of the trial and the weeks which followed, I could scarcely have survived them. To please her, I went away for a time, at the end of August, to our old friend Mrs. Francis Dawkins near Havant, and to Ripley Castle and Flaxton in Yorkshire; but I had no spirits to enjoy, scarcely to endure these visits.

It added to the complication of troubles that the poor Aunt Eleanor, for whose sake alone I had brought all the trouble upon myself, now began to take some perverted view,--_what_ I have never ascertained. She went to live with her brother George Paul, who had lately returned from America, and for ten years I never saw her to speak to.

I was most thankful when we left England for Italy on the 12th of October, and seemed to breathe freely when we were once more in our old travelling life, sleeping in the primitive inns at Joigny and Nuits, and making excursions to Citeaux and Annecy. Carlyle says, "My father had one virtue which I should try to imitate: _he never spoke of what was disagreeable and past_," and my Mother was the same; she turned her back at once upon the last months, which she put away for ever like a sealed volume. We spent several weeks at Florence in the Via della Scala, whence, the Mother being well, I went constantly to draw in the gallery of sketches by Old Masters at the Uffizi. But, in the middle of November, I felt already so ill, that I began to dread a possibility of dying where my Mother would not have any one to look after her, and on the 16th we hurried to Rome, where I had just time to look out lodgings for my Mother, and establish her and Lea in the Piazza Mignanelli, when I succumbed to a violent nervous fever. Most terrible are the sufferings which I recollect at this time, the agonising pains by day, and the nights of delirium, which were truly full of Coleridge's "pains of sleep," in which I was frequently haunted by the sardonic smile of the horrible Mrs. Dunlop, and otherwise by dreams which were, as Carlyle would say, "a constant plunging and careering through chaos and cosmos." In the second week of December I rallied slightly, and could sit with Mother in the sun on the terrace of Villa Negroni. By the 14th I was able to walk a little, and went, supported on each side, to the quiet sunny path by the Tiber which then existed opposite Claude's villa. Just in front of us a carter was walking by the side of his cart, heavily laden with stones. Suddenly the wheel of the cart went too near the steeply sloping bank of the Tiber and tipped over; the horse tried in vain to recover itself, but the weight of the stones was so great that it was dragged down, and slowly, slowly, screaming as only animals do scream, disappeared with the cart under the swollen yellow waters; while the driver stood helplessly upon the bank shrieking and wringing his hands.

Weak as I was, this terrible scene naturally brought back all my fever, which now turned to typhoid, and I soon became delirious. By the following Sunday my life was despaired of. But in the small hotel where we had stayed at Florence, we had met an American, Dr. Winslow, with his wife and daughters, to whom my Mother had shown kindness, and who had been struck with our entire union and devotion to each other. Dr. Winslow arrived in Rome when I was at the worst, and the first news he heard was that I was dying. He at once gave up his Roman sight-seeing and everything else, and devoted himself to me, coming many times a day and nursing me with such wonderful care, that I eventually recovered, though it was February before I was at all myself again. It was an unspeakable blessing that my Mother continued well during my long illness, and was so kindly looked after by Mrs. Woodward and Miss Wright that I had no anxiety about her; though in the spring, when we had moved to the Via Babuino, she had one of her strange illnesses, ending in a tranquil unbroken sleep which lasted two days and nights. It was about this time that she was called to bear a loss which in earlier years would have been utterly crushing, that of her sister-friend Lucy, who expired peacefully in her quiet home at Abbots-Kerswell, with only her faithful maid watching over her. In her hermit-life, my Aunt Lucy had become farther removed from us each year, but two years before my Mother had found great happiness in visiting her, and her beautiful letters were a constant enjoyment. Still it is a merciful dispensation that to those who are themselves on the border-land of heaven, bereavements fall less bitterly, separations seem so short; and, to my Mother, the loss of the dearest friend of her early life was only a quiet grief: she had "only gone from one room into the next." My Aunt Lucy Hare had never liked me, but I had none of the bitter feeling towards her which I had towards my Aunt Esther: she truly loved my Mother, and I could admire, though I could not enter into, the various graces of her character, which were none the less real because they were those of a Carmelite nun in Protestant form.

To Roman antiquaries this spring was rendered important from the discovery of the site of the Porta Capena,--the site of which was long a vexed question,--by Mr. J. H. Parker, the Oxford publisher, who devoted much of his fortune to archæological pursuits. Pius IX. granted him permission to excavate without in the least believing anything would come of it. But when he came to inspect the discoveries he exclaimed, "Why, the heretic's right," and complained bitterly that his own archæologists, whom he paid highly, should have failed to find what had been discovered by a foreigner. Mr. Parker carefully marked all the pieces then found of the Servian Wall, and numbered them in red; but the _guardia_, seeing the red marks, thought they meant something revolutionary, and destroyed them. When he found them gone, Parker was furious. "Is it," he said, "due to the absurdities of an effete religion, or is it perhaps the insolence of some rival archæologist?" (meaning Rosa).

As we returned through France in the spring of 1869, we diverged to Autun and Nevers, the last of the pleasant expeditions the dear Mother and I made together in summer weather. The greater part of our summer was spent quietly at home, and was chiefly marked for me by the marriage of my dear friend Charlie Wood to Lady Agnes Courtenay.

_To_ MISS WRIGHT.

"_Holmhurst, July 10, 1869._--Your description made me see a pleasant mental picture of the cousinhood assembled at your party. For myself, I cannot but feel that all _social_ pleasures will henceforward become more and more difficult for me, as the Mother, though not ill, becomes daily more dependent upon me for all her little interests and amusements, so that I scarcely ever leave her even for an hour. It is an odd hermit-like life in the small circuit of our little Holmhurst, with one or two guests constantly changing in its chambers, but no other intercourse with the outside world. At last summer has burst upon us, and looks all the brighter for the long waiting, and our oak-studded pastures are filled with gay groups of haymakers, gathering in the immense crop. The garden is lovely, and my own home-sunflower is expanding in the warmth and stronger and better than she has been for months past."

"_Holmhurst, August 1._--I cannot be away from home at all this summer, partly because I cannot leave Mother, who (though very anxious to promote my going away) is really becoming more dependent upon my constant care and companionship; and partly because I cannot afford the inevitable small expenses of going anywhere, our finances having been completely prostrated by the Roman Catholic robberies last year. Indeed, I have never been poorer than this year, as I have had _nothing_, and when I put two threepenny bits into the Communion plate to-day, felt exceedingly like the widow with the two mites, for it was literally all that I possessed! However, this is not so very dreadful after all, and I daresay another year matters will come round."

In September, however, when Charlotte Leycester came to take care of my Mother, I did go to the North.

_To_ MY MOTHER.

"_Ridley Hall, Sept. 1, 1869._--Though I have got into a great scrape with Cousin Susan by calling blackberry jelly, 'jam,' and though I was _terribly_ scolded the other day for saying 'thanks,'--'such new-fangled vulgarity,'--this visit at Ridley has been very pleasant. First, there never was more perfect ideal weather, so fresh and bright, so bracing, and the colouring of the woods and moorlands, and the glorious tumbling amber-coloured rivers so beautiful. Then I feel much stronger and better than I have done for two years past, and Cousin Susan, who thought me most ghastly when I arrived, is quite satisfied with the results of her grouse, pheasants, and sherry. On Wednesday Lady Blackett came to spend the day, and, after she was gone, Cousin Susan and I made a long exploring expedition far beyond the Allen Water, up into the depths of Staward valley--most romantic little paths through woods and miniature rocky gorges to a ruined bridge and 'Plankey Mill,' and then up a steep wood path to the moor of Briarside. Cousin Susan had never been so far since she lived here, and we were walking, or rather climbing, for three hours, attended by the white dogs. These have chairs with cushions on each side the fireplace in her new sitting-room. One is in bad health, has medical attendance from Hexham at half-a-guinea a visit, and uninitiated visitors must be rather amazed when they see 'my poor little sick girl' whom Cousin Susan is constantly talking of.... On Sundays there is only service here in the morning: the clergyman giving as his curious reason for not having it in the afternoon, that 'perhaps it might annoy the Dissenters.' ... This evening it has thundered. Cousin Susan, as usual on such occasions, hid herself with her maid under the staircase (the safest place in case of thunderbolts), and held a handkerchief over her eyes till it was over; but her nerves have been quite upset ever since, and we are not to have the carriage to-morrow for fear the storm should return."

_"Ford Castle, Sept. 8._--It was almost dark as I drove up the beautiful new road over the high bridge to the renovated castle, which is now all grand and in keeping. I found the beautiful mistress of the house in her new library, which is a most delightful room, with carved chimney-piece and bookcases, and vases of ferns and flowers in all the corners and in the deep embrasures of the windows. She is full of the frescoes in her school. 'I want to paint "Josiah was eight years old when he began to reign." I think he must be a little boy on a step with other children round him--a very little boy, and he must have some little regal robes on, and I think I must put a little crown upon his head.'"

"_Sept. 10._--Every day of a visit at Ford always seems to contain more of charm and instruction than hundreds of visits elsewhere. The great interest this time has been Lady Canning's drawings--many hundreds of them, and all so beautiful that you long to look at each for hours. All yesterday evening Lady Waterford read aloud to us--old family letters, from old Lady Hardwicke and from Lady Anne Barnard. 'My great-aunt, Lady Anne Barnard,' she says, 'wrote a book very like your Family Memoirs, only hers was too imaginative. She called all her characters by imaginary names, and made them all quite too charming: still her book is most interesting. She was very intimate with Mrs. Fitzherbert, and describes all her first meetings with George IV. and the marriage, and then she went with her on her famous expedition to Paris. She got possession of all the real letters of the family and put them into her book, but she embellished them. She got hold of a letter Uncle Caledon wrote to my aunt when he proposed to her, but when Uncle Caledon read the book and found a most beautiful letter, he said, "My dear, I never wrote all this."--"No, my dear," she answered, "I know you did not, but then I thought your real letter was not warm enough." Lady Anne Barnard wrote "Auld Robin Gray," and she used to describe how some one translated it into French, and how, when she went to Paris, she saw every one looking at her, she could not imagine why, till she heard some one say, "Voilà l'auteur du fameux roman de Robin Gray.'"[392]

"_Sept. 10._--We have all been to luncheon at Carham, sixteen miles off, and the latter part of the drive very pretty--close to the wide reaches of the Tweed, with seagulls flitting over it, and Cuyp-like groups of cattle on the shore, waiting for the ferryboats to take them across to Coldstream Fair. Carham is one of the well-known haunted houses: the 'Carham light' is celebrated and is constantly seen. We asked old Mrs. Compton of eighty-three, who lives there now, about the supernatural sights of Carham. 'Och,' she said, 'and have ye niver heard the story of the phantom carriage? We have just heard it this very morning: when we were waiting for you, we heard it drive up. We are quite used to it now. A carriage drives quickly up to the door with great rattling and noise, and when it stops, the horses seem to paw and tear up the gravel. Strange servants are terribly frightened by it. One day when I was at luncheon I heard a carriage drive up quickly to the door: there was no doubt of it. I told the servant who was in waiting to go out and see who it was. When he came back I asked who had come. He was pale as ashes. "Oh," he said, "it's only just the phantom coach."

"'And then there is the Carham light. That is just beautiful! It is a large globe of fire in the shape of a full moon: I have seen it hundreds of times. It moves about in the woods, and sometimes settles in one place. The first time I saw it I was driving from Kelso and I saw a great ball of fire. I said to the driver, "What is that?"--"Oh, it's just the Carham Light," he said. When Dick[393] came in, he said he did not believe it--he had never seen it; but that night it came--bright as ever. All the gentlemen went out into the woods to examine it; but it moved before them. They all saw it, and they were quite convinced: it has never been explained.'

"We had tea with the charming old lady. 'I've just had these cakes made, Lady Waterford,' she said, 'because they were once very weel likit by some very dear to you; so I thought you would like them.'

"Lady Waterford sends you a riddle:--

'Mon premier est un tyran, mon second une horreur, Mon tout est le diable lui-même. Mais si mon premier est bon, mon second ne fait rien, Et mon tout est le bonheur suprême.'"[394]

"_Foxhow, Ambleside, Sept. 12, 1869._--How lovely the drive into Foxhow from Windermere; but, after the grand ideas of my childhood, how small everything seems, even the lake and the mountains! We drove in at the well-remembered gate by Rotha Cottage, and along those lovely Swiss pasture-meadows. It was like a dream of the past as one turned into the garden, all so exactly the same and so well remembered, not only from our last brief visit, but from that of twenty-six years ago. Dear Mrs. Arnold is little altered, and is so tenderly affectionate and charming, that it is delightful to be with her. She likes to ask all about you and Holmhurst, and says that her power of producing mind-pictures and dwelling upon them often brings you before her, so that she sees you as before, only older, in your home life. It is quite beautiful to see the intense devotion of her children to their mother and her happiness in them, in Fan especially. All the absent ones write to her at least three times a week.

"We have just been in a covered car to Rydal Church: how beautiful the situation! How well I remembered being sick as a child from the puggy smell of its hideous interior. It was just as puggy to-day, but I was not sick. There was a most extraordinary preacher, who declared that the Woman on the seven mountains was Rome on her seven hills--'allowed to be so by all authorities, Jewish, and even Romanist,'--that the dragon was only the serpent in its worshipped form, and that both were identical with the Beast and represented the pagan religion; that the Woman flying into the wilderness before the Beast was Early Christianity flying from pagan persecution, and that when she came back, to St. John's astonishment she was seated _on_ the Beast, _i.e._, she had adopted all the pagan attributes, the cross, the mother and child--well-known objects of worship at Babylon, and Purgatory--a tenet of pagan Rome!"

"_Foxhow, Sept. 14._--My Mother will have thought of this pouring weather as most unpropitious for the Lake Country, but in reality it has not signified very much, as each day it has cleared for a few hours, and the lights and shadows have been splendid. On Sunday afternoon Edward (Arnold) and I went up Loughrigg. All the little torrents were swollen by the storms, and the colours of the dying fern and the great purple shadows on Helm Crag and Bow Fell were most beautiful. It is a most picturesque bit of mountain, and it all strikes me, as I remember it did in 1859, as more really beautiful than anything in Switzerland, though so contracted.

"Yesterday afternoon we walked to Grasmere, and I stayed looking at the interesting group of Wordsworth tombs, whilst Edward paid a visit. Afterwards the lake looked so tempting, that Edward rowed me down it, sending the boat back by a boy. We landed at the outlet of the Rotha on the other side, and had a beautiful walk home by a high terrace under Loughrigg. If one remained in this country, one could not help becoming fond of Wordsworth, his descriptions are so exact. Edward has repeated many of his poems on the sites to which they apply, and they are quite beautifully pictorial. Mrs. Arnold is very happy in the general revival of interest in his poetry.... Nothing can be more enjoyable and united than the family life here, the children and grandchildren coming and going, and so many interesting visitors. Truly dear Mrs. Arnold's is an ideal old age, so hedged in by the great love and devotion of her descendants."[395]

"_Dalton Hall, Lancashire, Sept. 17._--I always enjoy being here with the Hornbys. Yesterday we drove in the morning to Yealand, a pretty village so called from the Quakers who colonised it. In the afternoon we went to Levens. It is a lovely country, just upon the outskirts of the Lake District, with the same rich green meadows, clear streams, and lanes fringed with fern and holly. We passed through Milnthorpe, and how well I remembered your shutting me up and making me learn a Psalm in the inn there, instead of letting me go out to draw! The country is very primitive still. An old clergyman who officiated till lately in the neighbouring church of Burton Moss had only three sermons, one of which was laid in turn on the pulpit desk by his housekeeper every Sunday morning. When he had finished, he used to chuck it down to her out of the pulpit. One of these sermons was on 'Contentment,' and contained--apropos of discontent--the story of the Italian nobleman whose tombstone bore the words, 'I was well, I wished to be better, and now I am here.'"

It was a great pleasure this autumn to see again in London the New Zealand Sir George Grey. I remember his saying how he wished some one would write a poem on Pharaoh pursuing the Israelites to the Red Sea, from the point of view that in pursuing them he was pursuing Christianity; that if the Israelites had perished, and not Pharaoh, there would have been no Redemption.

JOURNAL (The Green Book).

"_Holmhurst, Oct. 13, 1869._--After the storms of last year, this summer has been peaceful and quiet. My sweet Mother, though often ailing, has been very gently and quietly happy. She seems older, but age has with her only its softening effects--casting a brighter halo around her sweet life, and rendering more lovable still every precious word and action.... We are more than ever to each other now in everything."

We left home in 1869 on the 14th of October, intending to cross the Channel at once, but on arriving at Folkestone, found such a raging sea, that we retreated to Canterbury to wait for better weather. This enabled us to pay a charming visit to Archdeacon and Mrs. Harrison, who had been very familiar to us many years before, when the Stanleys lived at Canterbury. It was the last visit my Mother ever paid, and she greatly enjoyed it, as it seemed almost like a going back into her Hurstmonceaux life, a revival of the ecclesiastical interests which had filled her former existence. Whenever any subject was alluded to, Archdeacon Harrison, like Uncle Julius, went to his bookcase, and brought down some volume to illustrate it. Thus I remember his reading to us in the powerful sermons of Bishop Horsley. One of the most remarkable was upon the Syro-Phœnician woman. Another is on the French Nuns, in defence of their institution in England, saying, with little foresight, how unlikely they were to increase in number, and how very superior they were to those women "who strip themselves naked to go out into the world, who daub their cheeks with paint, and plaster their necks with litharge."

Apropos of the proverb about Tenterden Steeple and Goodwin Sands, Archdeacon Harrison described how it was in allusion to two things totally disconnected. Tenterden Steeple and Goodwin Sands are very far apart, and of course have no connection whatever: yet perverse persons used to say that Tenterden Steeple was the cause of Goodwin Sands, as money which ought to have been used to prevent the accumulation of Goodwin Sands was diverted to the building of Tenterden Steeple. The place where you may hear most about it is "Latimer's Sermons." Latimer is inveighing against the persons who denounced the study of the Bible as the cause of the misfortunes of the time, and says that they had as much connection as Tenterden Steeple and Goodwin Sands, and so forth.

_To_ MISS WRIGHT.

"_Munich, Nov. 1, 1869._--We made it four days' journey from Paris to Strasbourg. First we went to Bar-le-duc. I had longed to see it, from a novel I read once, and it is well worth while--the old town rising above the new like the old town of Edinburgh--tall grey houses pierced with eight or ten rows of windows, a river with a most picturesque bridge, and in the church 'Le Squelette de Bar,' a wonderful work of Richier, the famous sculptor of S. Mihiel, commemorating the Princes of Bar (Henri I., II., III., &c.), sovereigns of whom I wonder if you ever heard before: I never did.

"We slept next at Toul, where there is a fine huge dull cathedral, a beautiful creche by Ignace Robert, and a lovely convent cloister of flamboyant arches. Living at Toul is wonderfully cheap; our rooms for three were only four francs, and dinner for three four francs.[396] We wonder people do not emigrate to Lorraine instead of to Australia; it would be far cheaper, and infinitely more amusing. If it had been warmer, we should have gone to Domremy and S. Mihiel, but we feared the cold. We were a day at Nancy: how stately it is! At Strasbourg we found that the storks had left, and we thought it the least interesting place on the road, yet most people stay only there.

"We had three days at Carlsruhe, and found dear Madame de Bunsen most bright and well and charming, with much to tell that was worth hearing, and the fullest sympathy and interest in others. Generally one feels that conversation weakens the mind; with the Bunsens it never fails to strengthen it. Madame de Bunsen talked much of the difficulties which had crowded round her when she herself was to begin the Memoir of her husband. Bunsen had said to her, 'You must tell the story of our common life; you are able to do it, only do not be afraid.' Thus to her the work was a sacred legacy. First, as material, her son George brought her Bunsen's letters to his sister Christiana, which she had given to him, and which he had fortunately never given to his father for fear he should destroy them. Then she had written to Reck, the early Göttingen friend and confidant of all Bunsen's early life, and had been refused all help without any explanation! Then Stockmar, Brandeis, &c., sent all their letters; thus the work grew. But there were no journals, she had made no notes, there was only her recollection to fall back upon. Madame de Bunsen regretted bitterly the destruction of Uncle Julius's letters by his widow, especially those written in his early life to his brother Augustus, which would have been 'the history of the awakening of a new phase of opinions.' I made quantities of notes from the intensely interesting reminiscences Madame de Bunsen poured forth of her own life.[399]

"We were one day at Stuttgart, which I had never seen, and was delighted with--so handsome, really a beautiful little capital, and we reached Munich in time to have one day for the International Exhibition of Paintings, which was well worth seeing--finer, I thought, than ours. The German artists have surely far more originality than the artists of other nations. Three pictures especially remain in my mind--'The Chase after Luck,' a wild horseman with Death riding behind him in pursuit of Luck, a beautiful figure scattering gold and pearls whilst floating on a bladder, full speed across a bridge which ends in a rotten plank over a fathomless abyss: 'The Cholera in Rome,' the Angel of Death leading the Cholera--a hideous old woman--down the street under the Capitol by moonlight, and showing her the door she is to knock at: 'L'Enfant qui dort à l'ombre du lit maternel, et les Anges qui savent d'avance le sort des humains, et baissent avec larmes ses petites mains.' It is interesting to see how familiar the German common people are with their artists: the great names of Kaulbach, Henneberg, &c., are in every mouth; how few of our common people would know anything of Landseer or Millais!"

"_Vicenza, Nov. 14._--The descent into Italy by the Brenner was enchanting--the exchange of the snow and bitter cold of Germany for vineyards and fruit-gardens, still glorious in their orange and scarlet autumnal tints. We were greatly delighted with Botzen, where the delicately wrought cathedral spire against the faint pink mountains tipped with snow is a lovely subject.

"At Verona we spent several days, thinking it more captivating than ever. Mother was able to enjoy the Giusti gardens, and I went one day to Mantua. It is wonderful. The station is two miles off, and the drive into the town across an immense bridge over the lake is most striking[401]--the towers all reflected in the still waters, and the fishing-boats sailing in close under the houses. Then, in the town, the intense desolation of one part--courts and corridors and squares all grass-grown and utterly tenantless--is a striking contrast to the other part, teeming with life and bustle. The Palazzo del Té is marvellous--only one story high, gigantic rooms covered with grand frescoes opening on sunny lawns with picturesque decaying avenues. I wandered over the vast ducal palace with three American ladies, who 'guessed' that 'when Mantua was in its prime, it must have been rather an elegant city.'"

"_Hôtel de Londres, Pisa, Dec. 7._--From Verona we went to Vicenza, where we stayed nearly a week in the old-fashioned palazzo which is now turned into the Hôtel de la Ville. We found some old Roman acquaintances there--Mrs. Kuper and her daughter, great Italian travellers, famous linguists, and excessively amusing companions. With them I went many delightful walks in the lovely country near Vicenza, which is quite the ideal Italy one reads so much of and so seldom sees--splendid mountain background with snowy peaks; nearer hills golden with decaying chestnuts and crimson with falling vine-leaves; old shrines and churches half hidden in clematis and vine, and a most interesting town with a fine picture-gallery--Montagna (not Mantegna) being the great master. I took to the plan of trying to make ever so slight sketches from pictures, and find them, bad as they are, far more interesting than photographs. We had permission to walk in the lovely gardens of the old Marchese Salvi, close to the hotel, a great pleasure to the Mother.

"The Kupers preceded us to Padua and engaged comfortable rooms for us there, to which we followed. Here was another kind of interest in the quaint churches; the Prato della Valle with its stone population; the University, where we went to hear a lecture and saw the 3000 students assembled; and the society of some pleasant young Paduans--M. Fava and Count Battistino Medine, introduced by the Kupers. But alas! Mother became very unwell indeed during the latter part of our stay at Padua, and I was made very unhappy by her constant cough and inability to take food. So I was thankful when we were able to come on to this comfortable hotel, where Flora and the faithful Victoire are incessant in their attentions. I am still anxious about my sweet Mother, who is very ailing and unable to go out; otherwise I always like staying at Pisa, with its clean quiet streets and the interest of the Campo Santo, so full of beautiful relics and memories. Many delightful hours have I spent there, and what a school of art and history it is! And then the Spina is always so graceful and striking against the crimson sunset which turns the muddy Arno into a river of fire.[407] Then, only think, I have made a new friend, and, strange to say, an American, with the uninteresting name of Robert Peabody. I do not know when, if ever, I have seen any one I like so much--so clever, so natural, so unworldly, so large-minded, so good-looking. The Mother thinks my sudden friendships most fantastic, but I have no doubt about this one; and as Mother was much better last week, I went away with him for four days to Siena and S. Gemignano, and we were entirely happy together, though it poured cats and dogs the whole time, and thundered and lightened as if the skies were coming down. I do not think you have ever been half excited enough about Siena: it seems to me such a sublime place--the way it rises out of that desolate earthquake-riven country, the cathedral so grandly solemn, and such a world of interest circling around all the scenes in S. Catherine's life. I tried to draw the famous Sodoma, and longed to stay months, but we only did stay two days, and then away we went in a _baroccino_ over the hills to S. Gemignano. You must never come to Italy again without going there: I am beginning now to fancy that no one has seen Italy who has missed S. Gemignano. It is a perfect sanctuary of art, the smallest town ever seen, but with thirteen tall mediæval towers in fullest preservation, crowning the top of the little hill like a huge group of ninepins, and with churches covered with frescoes by Filippo and Simone Memmi, Beccafumi, Ghirlandajo, and all that wonderful school. The great saint of the place is Santa Fina--a poor girl, who had a spine complaint, lay for years on a backboard, bore her intense sufferings with great patience, and finally died a most peaceful and holy death--perhaps the _one_ Roman Catholic saint whose story is unspoilt by miracles. I first heard about her from Lady Waterford, and had always longed to see her native place. The Ghirlandajo fresco of her death is most touching and real, portraying the bare cottage room, the hard-featured Tuscan nurse, the sick girl on her backboard--all like a scene in a Tuscan cottage now; and, above, the angels floating away with their newly-gained sister. But the people of S. Gemignano forgot the picture when they quaintly told us that 'all the little flowers and shrubs were so enchanted with her exemplary patience, that they began to sprout around her bed, and by her twenty-eighth year (when she died) she was lying in quite a garden of beautiful flowers.'"

In recollection I feel grateful for this short absence from my Mother with Robert Peabody, as it procured for me my last tiny letter from her--cheerful and tender as all her letters were now. But after the beginning of December I seldom left her, and the next six weeks were spent entirely in her room, in watching and cheering her through a time of great suffering, whilst the rain never ceased to fall in torrents. I was often able to amuse her with stories of my companions at the _table-d'hôte_.

JOURNAL.

"_Pisa, Nov. 27._--The chief interest here has been from travellers in the hotel--a Mr. and Mrs. D., kind, vulgar people, who have seldom been out of London, except to Paris, and who do not speak a word of any foreign language; at least Mr. D. does speak certain words, and uses them all together to all the foreigners he meets, without any regard to their meaning--'Lait pain thé bongjour toodyswee;'--a haughty pretty Polish girl and her governess, and a clever pretty Polish Comtesse de M. with her young husband. The last lady keeps the whole table alive with her stories, told with the utmost naïveté, and in the prettiest manner.

"'I will tell you about my going to Ferrara. When I arrived I was gasping with hunger. We drove up to the hotel. "Could we have any dinner?"--"J'en suis désolé, Madame, but the cook is out." We drove to another. "Could we have any dinner?"--"J'en suis au désespoir, Madame, mais il n'y a pas de feu." We drove on. Another hotel. We ordered our dinner, and when it was put on the table, it was so dreadful, I gave one look and ran out of the room. And then the sights of Ferrara! We went to the castle. It was horrible--a ghastly dungeon with bare walls and chains and one glimmering ray of light. "_This_," said the guide, "was the dungeon of Ugo and Parisina; here they suffered and here they died." Oh, mon Dieu, quel horreur! I wished to go somewhere else. They took me to a convent--again a ghastly room, a fearful prison. "_This_, Madame, was the prison of Tasso"--encore des horreurs! Oh, then I would have a carriage. I asked the driver where he would take me. "Ma, Signora, allo Campo Santo." Ah! quelle triste ville la ville de Ferrare! But when we got to Bologna, and I asked where we should go, c'était toujours la même chose--toujours au Campo Santo, and at Pisa here, it is encore au Campo Santo!

"'At Ferrara, in the prison of Tasso, they show on the wall an ode written by Lord Byron. The rest of the wall is white, but the place where the ode is written is brown. "Why," I asked, "is that part of the wall brown?"--"Ah!" said the custode, "that is the sweat of the English. All the English will touch the writing of their compatriot, and then they perspire from their hot fingers, and thus it is brown." In the same room is a great hole; the wall has crumbled away: it is gone: the room will fall. "And what is that?" I asked. "Ah! that is made by the English, who all insist upon taking away a morsel of the prison of Tasso." And thus it was at Verona; when I saw Juliet's tomb, they told me it was only an imitation; for as for the real one, the English ladies had chopped it all up and were wearing it in bracelets. Oh, comme c'est ennuyant de voyager, il faut tourner la tête pour regarder les tableaux, et on casse le cou par ici: il faut regarder par la fênetre pour voir la vue, et on casse le cou par là: il faut regarder au plafond pour voir les fresques, et on casse le cou de tous les côtés à la fois. And then the journey to Switzerland! Mais aller en Suisse, jamais! What do you want to see mountains for? to admire their height? Ah! then how stupid to go up! Why, of course they become shorter every step you go. No, you should go into the depths to see the mountains. Les plaines pour moi!... Jusqu'à mon mariage je ne suis jamais sortie à pied, mais depuis mon mariage je suis devenue ... raisonable.'

"I asked the Polish ladies if the language they spoke was Russian. It was like throwing a bomb into the camp. They detest the Russians, and would not speak to a pleasant Countess Boranoff, _née_ Wasilikoff, who has been staying here.... But of all my Pisan acquaintance there is none like Robert Peabody! He has been at an atelier in Paris for two years studying as an architect, and had a charming life there with his fellow-students, making walking tours in France, &c. When he first went to Paris, he did not know a word of French, and made out his washing bills by drawing little pictures, socks, shirts, drawers, &c., and the washerwoman put the prices opposite them."

On December 10 occurred the terrible floods of the Arno.

_To_ MISS LEYCESTER.

"_Pisa, Dec. 11, 1869._--How little you will be able to imagine all we have been going through in the last twenty-four hours! We have had a number of adventures in our different travels, but this is by far the worst that has ever befallen us. Now I must tell you our story consecutively.

"For the last three days the Mother has been very ill. On Thursday she had an attack of fainting, and seemed likely to fall into one of her long many days' sleep.... The rain continued day and night in torrents. Yesterday made it three weeks since we arrived, and in that time there had been only two days in which the rain had not been ceaseless. The Arno was much swollen: I saw it on Thursday, very curious, up to the top of the arches of the bridges.

"Yesterday, Friday, Madame Victoire came to dine with Lea. Afterwards she came up to see us as usual, and then Flora's children came to be shown pictures. I think it must have been half-past three when they took leave of us. Lea went with them down the passage. Soon she came back saying that little Anna said there was 'such an odd water coming down the street, would I come and see,' and from the passage window I saw a volume of muddy water slowly pouring down the street, not from the Arno, but from towards the railway station, the part of the street towards Lung' Arno (our street ends at the Spina Chapel) remaining quite dry. The children were delighted and clapped their hands. I meant to go and see the water nearer, but before I could reach the main entrance, in half a minute the great heavy waves of the yellow flood were pouring into the courtyard and stealing into the entrance hall.[408]

"It was as suddenly as that it came upon us.

"The scene for the next half-hour baffles all description. Flora and her mother stood on the principal staircase crying and wringing their hands: the servants rushed about in distraction: Lea, pale as ashes, thought and cried that our last moment was come; and all the time the heavy yellow waters rose and rose, covering first the wheels of the omnibus, the vases, the statues in the garden, then up high into the trees. Inside, the carpets were rising and swaying on the water, and in five minutes the large pieces of furniture were beginning to crash against each other. I had rushed at the first alarm to the _garde meuble_, and (how I did it I cannot imagine) dragged our great box to the stairs: it was the only piece of luggage saved from the ground-floor. Then I rushed to the _salle-à-manger_, and shouting to Flora to save the money in her bureau, swept all the silver laid out for dinner into a tablecloth, and got it safe off. From that moment it was a _sauve qui peut_. I handed down rows of teapots, jugs, sugar-basins, &c., to the maids, who carried them away in lapfuls: in this way also we saved all the glass, but before we could begin upon the china, the water was up to our waists and we were obliged to retreat, carrying off the tea-urns as a last spoil. The whole family, with Amabile and all the old servants, were now down in the water, but a great deal of time was wasted in the belief that a poor half-witted Russian lady was locked into her room and drowning, and in breaking open the door; but when at last a panel of the door was dashed in, the room was found full of water and all its contents swimming about, but the lady was ... gone out for a walk!

"As I was coming in from the lower rooms to the staircase with a load of looking-glasses, a boat crashed in at the principal entrance, bringing home the poor lady and two other English, who had been caught by the flood at the end of the street, and had been for some time in the greatest peril: the boatmen having declined to bring them the few necessary steps until they had been paid twenty francs, and then having refused altogether to bring a poor Italian who had no money to give them. At this moment Madame Victoire insisted on taking the opportunity of the boat to return to her own house. It was a dreadful scene, all the women in the house crying and imploring her to stay, but she insisted on embarking. She did not arrive without hairbreadth escapes. When she reached her own house, the current was so strong, and the boat was dashed so violently against the walls, that it was impossible for her to be landed; but the flood was less violent beneath her larger house which is let to the Marchese Guadagna, from which sheets were let down from the upper windows, and she was fastened to them and raised: but when she reached the grille of the first-floor windows, and was hanging half-way, the current carried away the boat, and at the same moment the great wall opposite S. Antonio fell with an awful crash. However, the Guadagna family held tight to the sheets, and Madame Victoire was landed at last, though she fell insensible on the floor when she entered the window.

"The walls were now falling in every direction with a dull roar into the yellow waters. The noise was dreadful--the cries of the drowning animals, the shrieks of the women, especially of a mother whose children were in the country, wringing her hands at the window of an opposite house. The water in our house was rising so rapidly that it was impossible to remain longer on the side towards the principal staircase, and we fled to the other end, where Pilotte, a poor boy in the service, lay dangerously ill, but was obliged to get up from his bed, and, though quite blind from ophthalmia, was far more useful than any one else. Since her mother left, Flora had been far too distracted to think of anything; still we saved an immense number of things, and I was able to cut down pictures, &c., floating on a sofa as if it were a boat. The great difficulty in reaching the things was always from the carpet rising, and making it almost impossible to get out of the room again. The last thing I carried off was the 'Travellers' Book!' It was about half-past 5 P.M. when we were obliged to come out of the water, which was then terribly cold and above the waist.

"Meantime the scene in the street was terrible. The missing children of the woman opposite were brought back in a boat and drawn up in sheets; and the street, now a deep river, was crowded with boats, torches flashing on the water, and lights gleaming in every window. All the thirty poor hens in the hen-house at the end of the balcony were making a terrible noise as they were slowly drowned, the ducks and pigeons were drowned too, I suppose, being too frightened to escape, and many floated dead past the window. The garden was covered with cushions, chairs, tables, and ladies' dresses, which had been washed out of the lower windows. There was great fear that the omnibus horse and driver were drowned, and the Limosins were crying dreadfully about it; but the man was drawn up late at night from a boat, whose crew had discovered him on the top of a wall, and at present the horse exists also, having taken refuge on the terrace you will remember at the end of the garden, where it is partially above water. The street was covered with furniture, great carved wardrobes being whirled down to the Arno like straws. The cries of the drowning animals were quite human.

"All this time my poor sweet Mother had been lying perfectly still and patient, but about 6 P.M., as the water had reached the highest step of the lower staircase and was still mounting, we had our luggage carried up to the attics, secured a few valuables in case of sudden flight (as no boat would have taken luggage), and began to get Mother dressed. There was no immediate danger, but if another embankment broke, there might be at any moment, and it was well to be prepared. Night closed in terribly--pouring rain again, a perfectly black sky, and waters swelling round the house: every now and then the dull thud of some falling building, and, from beneath, the perpetual crash of the furniture and floors breaking up in the lower rooms. Mother lay down dressed, most of the visitors and I walked the passages and watched the danger-marks made above water on the staircase, and tried to comfort the unhappy family, in what, I fear, is their total ruin. It seemed as if daylight would never come, but at 6 A.M. the water was certainly an inch lower.

"It was strange to return to daylight in our besieged fortress. There had been no time to save food, but there was one loaf and a little cheese, which were dealt out in equal rations, and we captured the drowned hens as the aviary broke up, and are going to boil one of them down in a tiny saucepan, the only cooking utensil saved. Every one has to economise the water in their jugs (no chance of any other), and most of all their candles.... How we are ever to be delivered I cannot imagine. The railways to Leghorn, Spezia, and Florence must all be under water."

"_Dec. 14._--It seems so long now since the inundation began and we were cut off from every one: it is impossible to think of it as only three days.

"Nothing can be more dreadful than the utter neglect of the new Government and of the municipality here. They were fully warned as to what would result if Pisa was not protected from the Arno, but they took no heed, and ever since the dikes broke they have given no help, never even consenting to have the main drains opened, which keeps us still flooded, refusing to publish lists of the drowned, and giving the large sums sent for distribution in charity into the hands of the students, who follow one another, giving indiscriminately to the same persons, whilst others are starving. On Saturday night there ceased to be any immediate alarm: the fear was that the Arno might break through at the Spina, which still stands, and which, being so much nearer, would be far more serious to us. The old bridge is destroyed. All through that night the Vicomte de Vauriol and the men of the house were obliged to watch on the balconies with loaded pistols, to defend their property floating in the garden from the large bands of robbers who came in boats to plunder, looking sufficiently alarming by the light of their great torches. The whole trousseau of the Vicomtesse is lost, and her maid has 4000 francs in her box, which can still be seen floating _open_.... But the waters are slowly going down. Many bodies have been found, but there are still many more beneath the mud. In the lower rooms of this house the mud is a yard deep, and most horrid in quality, and the smell of course dreadful. I spend much of my time at the window in hooking up various objects with a long iron bed-rod--bits of silver, teacups, even books--in a state of pulp."

"_Dec. 19._--My bulletin is rather a melancholy one, for my poor Mother has been constantly in bed since the inundation, and cannot now turn or move her left side at all.... I have also been very ill myself, with no sleep for many days, and agonies of neuralgia from long exposure in the water.... However, I get on tolerably, and have plenty to take off my thoughts from my own pain in attending to Mother and doing what I can for the poor Limosins.... In the quarter near this seventy bodies have been found in the mud, and as the Government suppresses the number and buries them all immediately, there are probably many more. Our friends at Rome have been greatly alarmed about us."

"_Dec. 27._--Mother has been up in a chair for a few hours daily, but cannot yet be dressed. The weather is horrible, torrents of rain night and day--quite ceaseless, and mingled with snow, thunder, and lightning. It is so dark even at midday, that Mother can see to do nothing, and I very little. The mud and smell would prevent our going out if it were otherwise possible. It has indeed been a dismal three months, which we have all three passed entirely in the sick-room, except the four days I was away.... Still the dear Mother says 'we shall have time to recount our miseries in heaven when they are over; let us only recount our mercies now.'"

_To_ MISS WRIGHT.

"_33 Via Gregoriana, Rome, Jan. 19, 1870._--You will have heard from others of our misfortunes at Pisa, of Mother's terrible illness, and my wearing pains, and in the midst of all this our awful floods, the Arno bursting its banks and overwhelming the unhappy town with its mud-laden waves. I cannot describe to you the utter horror of those three days and nights--the rushing water (waves like the sea) lifting the carpets and dashing the large pieces of furniture into bits like so many chips,--the anxious night-watchings of the water stealthily advancing up step after step of the staircase,--the view from the upper corridor windows of the street with its rushing _tourbillon_ of waters, carrying drowning animals, beds, cabinets, gates, &c., along in a hideous confusion;--from our windows of the garden one maze of waters afloat with chairs, tables, open boxes, china, and drowned creatures;--the sound of the falling walls heavily gliding into the water, and the cries of the drowning and their relations. And then, in the hotel, the life was so strange, the limited rations of food and of water from the washing jugs, and the necessity for rousing oneself to constant action, and far more than mere cheerfulness, in order to prevent the poor people of the hotel from sinking into absolute despair.

"When the real danger to life once subsided and the poor drowned people had been carried away to their graves, and the water had changed into mud, it was a strange existence, and we had still six weeks in the chilled house with its wet walls, and an impossibility of going out or having change. However, there is a bright side to everything, and the utter isolation was not unpleasant to me. I got through no end of writing work, having plenty also to do in attending on my poor Mother; and you know how I can never sufficiently drink in the blessedness of her sweet companionship, and how entirely the very fact of her existence makes sunshine in my life, wherever it is.

"All the time of our incarceration I have employed in writing from the notes of our many Roman winters, which were saved in our luggage, and which have been our only material of employment. It seems as if 'Walks in Rome' would some day grow into a book. Mother thinks it presumptuous, but I assure her that though of course it will be full of faults, no book would ever be printed if perfection were waited for. And I really do know much more about the subject than most people, though of course not half as much as I ought to know.

"One day I was away at Florence, where I saw Lady Anne S. Giorgio and many other friends in a very short time. How bright and busy it looked after Pisa.

"Last week Pisa devoted itself, or rather its priests, to intense Madonna-worship, because, owing to her image, carved by St. Luke, the flood was no worse. Her seven petticoats, unremoved for years, were taken off one by one and exchanged for new, and this delicious event was celebrated by firing of cannon, processions, and illuminations all over the town. In the midst, the Arno displayed its disapproval by rising again violently and suddenly; the utmost consternation ensued; the population sat up, doors were walled up, the doll-worshippers were driven out of the cathedral (which lies very low) at the point of the bayonet by the Bersaglieri under General Bixio. To _us_, the great result of the fresh fright was, that the Mother suddenly rose from her bed, and declaring that she could not stay to endure another inundation, dressed, and we all set off last Wednesday morning, and arrived at midnight after a prosperous journey, though the floods were certainly frightful up to the very walls of Rome.

"Oh, how glad we were to get here--to feel that after all the troubles of the last few months we were safe in the beloved, the home-like city. It is now only that I realise what a time of tension our stay at Pisa has been. We breathe quietly. Even the calm placid Mother feels the relief of not having to start up at every sound and wonder whether 'L'Arno é sbordato.'

"I always feel as if a special Providence watched over us in respect of lodgings. It has certainly been so this time, as we could never have hoped, arriving so late, to obtain this charming apartment, with full sun, glorious view, and all else we can wish. You can fancy us, with all our own pictures and books, the mother in her chair, the son at his drawing-table, and Lea coming in and out.

"But on Friday we had a terrible catastrophe. In the evening at the hotel the poor Mother fell violently upon her head on the hard stone floor and was dreadfully hurt. You will imagine my terror, having gone out at 8 P.M., to find every one in confusion on my return, that Dr. Winslow had been sent for, and that I had been searched for everywhere. For some hours the Mother was quite unconscious, and she can still see nothing, and I am afraid it will be some days before any sight is restored; but all is going on well, and I am most thankful to have been able to move her to her own house.

"Do you know, I am going to renounce the pomps and vanities of the world this winter and not 'go out' at all. I have often found that it has rather fatigued Mother even to _hear_ of my going out, and it is far easier to give a thing up altogether than partially. In the daytime I can see people. My American friend Robert Peabody is here, and the most delightful companion, and there are endless young men artists, quite a colony, and of the pleasantest description.

"The weather is very fine, but very cold. I went to-day to St. Peter's (Il Giorno della Scatola), and the procession was certainly magnificent. The Bishop who attracts most attention is Monsignor Dupanloup of Orleans, who at first displayed great courage in opposing the Infallibility doctrine, but is allowing his opposition to be swamped. Many of the Bishops are most extraordinary--such a variety of forms and colours in costume, blue and violet veils, green robes and hats, and black caps with gold knobs like the little Shems and Hams in Noah's Ark. But the central figure of Pius IX. looks more than ever solemn and impressive, the _man_ so lost in his intense feeling of the _office_, that it is impossible to associate him, mentally, with the Council and its blasphemies. Of the Council itself we hear nothing, and there is little general interest about it. Lord Houghton asked Manning what had been going on: he answered, 'Well, we meet, and we look at one another, and then we talk a little, but when we want to know what we have been doing, we read the _Times_.'"

_To_ MISS LEYCESTER.

"_Jan. 31._--We have had another anxious week, though once more all is going on well. On Monday the Mother was well enough to see visitors, but that night was in terrible suffering, and the next day had a slight paralytic seizure ... followed by long unconsciousness; but it was all accounted for the next morning when we found the roof white with snow. She continued in great suffering till Friday, when the weather suddenly changed to _scirocco_, and she at once rallied. That day I was able to have my lecture on the Quirinal and Viminal--all new ground. There was a large gathering in spite of weather, so many people had asked to come. I have yielded to the general wish of the party in arranging weekly meetings at 10 A.M., but it makes me feel terribly ignorant, and--in the intervals of tending Mother--I am at work all the week instructing myself upon the subject of my lecture."

"_Feb. 19._--The Mother is still sadly weak, and always in an invalid state, yet she has not the serious symptoms of the winter you were here. She is seldom able to be dressed before twelve, and can do very, very little--to read a few verses or do a row of her crotchet is the outside. I scarcely ever leave her, except for my lectures. I had one on the Island yesterday. The weather is splendid and our view an indescribable enjoyment, the town so picturesque in its blue morning indistinctness, and St. Peter's so grand against the golden sunsets. As usual, the Roman society is like the great net which was let down into the deep and brought up fish of every kind.... The Mother is quite happy and bright in spite of all her misfortunes, but we have had to feed her like a bird in her blindness. I wonder if you know the lines of Thomas Dekker (1601)--

'Patience! why, 'tis the soul of peace; Of all the virtues, 'tis nearest kin to heaven; It makes men look like gods. The best of men That e'er wore earth about Him was a sufferer, A soft, meek, patient, humble, tranquil spirit; The first true gentleman that ever breathed."

_To_ MISS WRIGHT.

"_Rome, Feb. 27._--My life this winter has been one of constant watching and nursing; the Mother has been so very powerless and requires such constant care: but she is, oh! so sweet and patient _always_. You need not pity me for not going out; after the day's anxiety I find the luxury of the evening's rest so very great.

"My Friday lectures now take place regularly, and I hope they give pleasure, as they are certainly crowded. I am amused to see many ultra-Catholics come time after time, in spite of my Protestant anecdotes. How I wish the kind Aunt Sophy were here to share these excursions."

On the 12th of March I spent a delightful afternoon with a young artist friend, Henry Florence, in the garden of SS. Giovanni e Paolo, drawing the gloriously rich vegetation and the old cypresses there. My Mother was tolerably well, and the air, the sunshine, and the beauty around were unspeakably enchanting. "I never saw _any one_ enjoy things as you do," said Florence, and I spoke of my thankfulness for having the power of putting away anxieties when they were not pressing, and of making the utmost of any present enjoyment, even though it be to "borrow joy at usury of pain."[409] "Perhaps it may be the last day," I said. It _was_. There is an old proverb which says, "The holidays of joy are the vigils of sorrow." That night my dearest Mother had the terrible paralytic seizure which deprived her of the use of her left arm and side, and from which she never recovered.

_To_ MISS LEYCESTER.

"_Rome, March. 16, 1870._--My darling Mother is to-day in a happy peaceful state, no longer one of suffering, which is--oh! such rest to us. She is now able to articulate, so that I always, and others often, understand her.... I sleep close by upon the floor and never leave her. On Monday night we were pleasantly surprised by the arrival of Amabile, the maid from Pisa, who is quite a tower of strength to us--so kind, gentle, and strong. Mrs. Woodward comes and goes all day. Every one is kind and sympathising."

"_March 23._--Mother talks constantly of Albano and her great wish to be there amongst the flowers, but for many weeks, perhaps months, this must be impossible."

"_March 28._--It has been the same kind of week, alternately saddened by the strange phases of illness, or cheered by slight amendments; but Mother has had many sad nights, always worse than her days, without rest even for a minute. Her mind is only _too_ clear. She will translate hymns, 'Abide with me,' &c., into Italian; the great difficulty is to keep it all in check. From 4 to 10 P.M. the nervous spasms in the paralysed arm are uncontrollable, and she can only endure them by holding tight to my arm or Lea's. All yesterday, however, I was away from her, tending poor young Sutherland, who has been dreadfully ill at the Hôtel de Londres of typhoid fever, and who is quite alone and helpless."

"_April 3._--The Mother goes on very slowly, but I hope has not had an unpleasant week. She never seems to find the time long, and always looks equally placid and happy. Physically she is certainly more comfortable now she is entirely in bed. Her chief trouble is from the returning vitality of the poor arm; the muscles knot all round it, and move on slowly by a quarter of an inch at a time, as the life advances: passing the shoulder was agony, and I dread the passing the elbow. Meantime, the rest of the arm is an independent being, acting by its independent muscular action, and is obliged to be constantly watched, as it will sometimes lay its heavy weight upon her chest, once clutched her by the throat and nearly strangled her, at others annoys her by stealing her pocket-handkerchiefs! She has been able to hear a psalm and some prayers read aloud every evening, and occupies herself with her own inexhaustible stores of mental hymns and verses incessantly. Mrs. Woodward's daily visit is one of her little pleasures, and she has also seen Mrs. Hall several times.

"My young cousin Edward Liddell[410] returned lately from Naples, and on Monday became very ill of fever, pronounced typhoid, and likely to become typhus and very infectious, so, as he had no one else to look after him, I have been nursing him ever since. It was so fortunate for me that Mother was really better at this time, or I do not know what we could have done, as though he had one good nurse, she was quite worn out, and there was no other to be procured. So now we take it in turns, four hours at a time, and I chiefly at night, when she goes home to her children. I am writing in the darkened room, where Edward lies powerless, with all his hair cut off and his head soaked in wet towels, almost unable to move, and unable to feed himself. I am sorry not to be able to go out while Marcus Hare is here, and he is much disappointed. He arrived suddenly from Naples and embraced me as if we were still children."

"_April 10._--My dear Mother is much the same. It has been a peaceful week with her, though there is no improvement.... The paralysed arm is quite useless, and has a separate and ungovernable individuality. This is why she can never be left alone. Its weight is like a log of lead, and sometimes it will throw itself upon her, when no efforts of her own can release her. Odd as it sounds, her only safe moments are when the obstreperous member is tied up by a long scarf to the post of Lea's bed opposite and cannot injure her. Mentally, she is always quiet and happy, and I believe that she never feels her altered life a burden. She repeats constantly her hymns and verses, for which her memory is wonderful, but she has no longer any power of attention to reading and no consecutive ideas. All names of places and people she remembers perfectly. As Dr. Winslow says, some of the organs of the brain are clearer than ever, others are quite lost.

"As the fear of infection caused him to be left alone, I have been constantly nursing Edward Liddell. All last week his fever constantly increased, and he was so weak that he could only swallow drops of strong soup or milk, perpetually dropped into his mouth from a spoon. Had this been ever relinquished, the feeble flame of life must have become extinct. Last Monday morning I had gone home to rest, when the doctor hastily summoned me back, and I found new symptoms which indicated the most immediate danger; so then, on my own responsibility, I telegraphed for Colonel and Mrs. Augustus Liddell (his father and mother), and soon had the comfort of hearing that they were _en route_. That evening the alarming symptoms returned with such frightful vehemence that both nurse and doctor thought it impossible that he could survive the night. Then and for three nights after I never left Edward for a moment, bathing his head, feeding him, holding him, and expecting him every instant to die in my arms, and in the day only I returned to pay Mother visits. Anything like his sweetness, gentleness, thankfulness, I never saw in any one, and his perfect readiness for heaven made us feel that it was the less likely that his life would be given back to us; and you may imagine, though I had scarcely known him before, how very close a cousinly tie has been drawn in these hours of anguish. He received the Sacrament on Thursday. On Friday there was a very slight improvement, but more delirium. For four days and nights he lay under a vast poultice of snow, which had to be replenished as often as it melted, and _making_ snow with a machine has been perhaps the most laborious part of my duties. Each night I have watched for the faint streak of dawn, wondering if he _could_ live till morning, and feeling as if I were wrestling for his life. Yesterday morning, when I knew his parents were coming, it was quite an agony of suspense; but they arrived safe, and I was able to give him up _living_ to his mother's care. I have had every day to write to Mrs. Fraser Tytler, to whose daughter Christina he had not been engaged a month, and of whom he has thought touchingly and incessantly.

"I am not much knocked up, but thankful even for myself that Mrs. Augustus Liddell is come, as my cough is so much increased by having to be so often out on the balcony at night, up to my elbows in the snow manufacturing. I do not think I could have held out much longer, and then I do not know what would have become of Edward."

"_April 17._--Last Sunday I had so much more cough, and was so much knocked up with my week's nursing, that kind Lady Marian Alford insisted on taking me early on Monday in her own carriage to Albano for change. It was like travelling with the Queen, everything so luxurious, charming rooms, and perfect devotion everywhere to 'la gran donna da bene,' her personal charm affecting all classes equally.

"Lady Marian had a very pleasant party at Albano, Lord and Lady Bagot and their daughter, Mr. Story,[412] Miss Boyle,[413] Miss Hattie Hosmer,[414] and Mr.[415] and Lady Emily Russell. The first afternoon we drove along the lake to Lariccia, where we went all over the wonderful old Chigi palace, and then on to the Cesarini garden at Genzano, overhanging the lake of Nemi. The next morning we went to the Parco di Colonna and Marino, and then in a tremendous thunderstorm to Frascati, where we dined in the old Campana Palace, returning to Rome in the evening. I like Mr. Odo Russell and his simple massive goodness extremely. I hear that Pius IX. says of him, 'Non é un buono cattolico, ma é un cattivissimo protestante.' Miss Hosmer had said to him, 'You're growing too fat: you ought to come out riding; it will do you no end of good;' to which he replied in his slow way, 'No, I cannot come out riding.'--'And why not?' said Miss Hosmer. 'Don't you know,' he said, 'that I am very anxious to be made an ambassador as soon as possible, and, since that is the case, I must stay working at home.'

"'I like midges, for they love Venice, and they love humanity,' said Miss Mary Boyle.

"On Wednesday, finding both my patients better, I acceded to Marcus's entreaties and went with him and some friends of his to Tivoli for the day. Most gloriously lovely was it looking! My companions scrambled round the waterfalls, whilst I sat and what Robert Peabody calls 'water-coloured' opposite the Cascatelle. In the evening we went to the Villa d'Este and saw the sun set upon the grand old palace through its dark frame of cypresses.

"This morning I went for the first time to see the bishops of the Council; rather a disappointing sight, though they are a fine set of old men. Some of the American costumes are magnificent.

"Monday is the end of Edward's twenty-one days' fever, and I am still very anxious for the result. As he says, I feel rather, since the arrival of his parents, like a hen who has nursed a duckling which has escaped: but I go every day to look at him."

"_April 30._--It is no use worrying oneself about the journey yet. It must always be painful and anxious. On returning to America, Dr. Winslow's last words to me were, 'Remember, if she has _any_ fright, _any_ accident, _any_ anxiety, there will be another seizure,' and in so long a journey this can scarcely be evaded. She must have more strength before we can think of it. Her own earnest wish is to go to Albano first, but I dread those twelve miles extra. We always had this house till May 15, and hitherto there has been no heat.

"On Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, Mother was carried down by two women in her dressing-gown, wrapped round with shawls, to a little carriage at the door. They were perfectly still sunny days, no bronchitis to be caught. The first day we only went round the Pincio, the second to the Parco di San Gregorio, the third to the Lateran and Santa Croce: she chose her own two favourite drives.

JOURNAL.

"_May 3, 1870._--Walked with Miss J. Pole Carew and her governess from the Villa Albani to Sant' Agnese to look for the blood-red lily, seven feet high, which smells so terribly that no one is able to pick it. The governess (Miss Nicholson) said how the twisted palms carried in the Roman Catholic ceremonies seemed to her like a type of their faith. So much would be beautiful and impressive in the lives of the martyrs and the memories of the early Church, if, like the palms, so beautiful when they are first brought to Rome, they were not twisted and overladen, to the hiding and destruction of their original character."

_To_ MISS LEYCESTER.

"_May 8._--Last Sunday we drove to the Villa Borghese, which is now in its fullest most luxuriant summer green. When we came back, the Tombola was taking place in the Piazza del Popolo, so that gate was closed, and we had to go round by Porta Salara. The slight additional distance was too much for Mother, so that she has been unable to be up even in her chair for several days. This will show you how weak she is: how terrible the return journey is to look forward to.

"She certainly never seems to realise her helplessness, or to find out that she can no longer knit or do the many things she is accustomed to.... She likes hearing Job read, because of the analogy of sufferings, but she does not _at all_ admire Job as a model of patience! Hymns are her delight, and indeed her chief occupation. She has great pleasure in the lovely flowers with which our poorer friends constantly supply us, especially in the beautiful roses and carnations of the faithful Maria de Bonis (the old photograph woman), who is as devoted as ever."

"_May 15._--The weather has been perfect. In all our foreign or home experience I do not recollect such weeks of hot sunshine, yet never oppressive; such a delicious bracing air always. The flowers are quite glorious, and our poor people--grateful as only Italians are--keep the sick-room constantly supplied with them.

"But, alas! it has been a very sad week nevertheless, and if I once allowed myself to think of it, my heart would sink within me. My dearest Mother has been so very, _very_ suffering; in fact, there have been very few hours free from acute pain, and, in spite of her sweet patience and her natural leaning towards only thanksgiving, her groans and wails have been most sad and the flesh indeed a burden.... You will easily imagine what it is to me to see this state of intense discomfort, and to be able to do nothing to relieve it; for I am quite convinced that nothing can be done, that medicine must be avoided as much as possible in her worn-out system, and that we must trust entirely to the effect of climate and to a returning power of taking nourishment. Dr. Grigor told her that it was a case of most suffering paralysis, usually producing such dreadful impatience that he wondered at her powers of self-control. But from my sweetest Mother, we never hear one word which is not of perfect patience and faith and thanksgiving, though her prayers aloud for patience are sometimes too touching for us to bear. She has not been out for ten days, as she has really had no strength to bear the lifting up and down stairs, and she has seen nobody except our dear Mrs. Woodward and Mary Stanley."

_To_ MISS WRIGHT.

"_Rome, May 22, 1870._--The Mother can recover no power in her lost limbs, in which she has, nevertheless, acute pain. Yet, deprived of every employment and never free from suffering, life is to her one prolonged thanksgiving, and in the sunshine of her blessed state of outpouring gratitude for the silver linings of her clouds, it is not for her nurses to repine. In her case daily more true become the lines of Waller--

'The soul's dark cottage, battered and decayed, Lets in new light through chinks that time has made.'

But when even her short excursions to the Pincio or Villa Borghese produce the most intense exhaustion, no stranger can imagine how we can dream of attempting the immense homeward journey. Still, knowing her wonderful power of will and what it _has_ accomplished, I never think anything impossible, and all minor details of difficulty become easier when one has a fixed point of what must be. We shall at any rate try to reach Florence, and then, if she suffers seriously and further progress is quite impossible, we shall be on the way to Lucca or Siena. If we ever do reach Holmhurst, of course it will be for _life_, which makes the leaving this more than second home very sad to me.

"I have had many pleasant friends here this winter, especially the Pole Carews, who are a most charming family. Latterly also I have seen much of Mrs. Terry, who is a very interesting and delightful person. Since the world has drifted northwards, I have seen more of the few friends who remain, and with the Terrys have even accomplished a very old desire of going to Bracciano. It is a beautiful drive across the Campagna, and then comes the ascent into the steep old town, and under the many gates and fortalices of the castle, to a courtyard with painted loggias. Armed with an order from Princess Odescalchi, we went all over the rooms with their curious ugly old pictures and carving, and sat in the balconies looking down upon the beautiful transparent Bracciano lake, twenty miles in circumference, all the mountains reflected as in a mirror. Mrs. Terry is charming: after we had talked of sad subjects she said--'But we have spoken enough of these things; now let us talk of butterflies and flowers.' In spite of all other work, I have sold £75 worth of sketches this winter, chiefly old ones, so am nearly able to pay our rent."

_To_ MISS LEYCESTER.

"_Rome, May 26, 1870._--The Mother is better for the great heat, thermometer standing at 85°, but Rome always has such a fresh air that heat is never overpowering, and in our delightful apartments we never suffer, as we can have so much variety, and if Mother does not go out, she is moved to the balcony overhanging the little garden at the back, where she sits and has her tea under a vine-covered pergola. If we are permitted to reach Holmhurst, I fear _all_ will not be benefit. I much dread the difficulty there will be in keeping Lea from being wholly engrossed again by household affairs, and I cannot see how Mother _could_ do without her almost constant attendance, which she has now. Also, we shall greatly miss the large bedroom opening into a sitting-room, where I can pursue my avocations, able to be with her at the faintest call, and yet not quite close to the groans.... But all this is long, long looking forward: there seems such a gulf between us and England.... Yet we think of attempting the move next week, and on Friday sent off six large boxes with the accumulations of many years, retaining also a list of what must be sent back if we never reach England.

"The Signorina and Samuccia, Clementina and Louisa, Rosina and Madame da Monaca, have all been to say good-bye, and all kiss Mother with tears on taking leave, overcome by her helpless state and sweet look of patience."

"_May_ 29.--Emmie Penrhyn's letter was an especial pleasure to the Mother, and what she said of the centurion's servant, grievously 'tormented.' Certainly _she_ is grievously tormented. The pain really never ceases, and the individual motion of the helpless arm is terrible.... I think with misery of the disappointment the return to Holmhurst will be to her. She cannot realise that it will not be, as it has always been, the home of her _well_ months, talks of how she shall 'frolic out into the garden,' &c. I feel if we ever reach it, it is going, not to England, but to Holmhurst for _life_.... We have been to the cemetery under Caius Cestius, and the sentinel allowed her little carriage to pass across the turf, so that she was able to look once more upon the well-known grave, embosomed in its roses and aloes. Yesterday we went to take leave of the old Miss Haigs at their beautiful villa. The three old ladies embraced Mother, and presented her, like three good fairies, one with roses, another with geraniums, and the third with two ripe strawberries."

"_Florence, June 1._--Monday was a terribly fatiguing day, but Mother remained in bed, and was very composed, only anxious that nothing should occur to prevent our departure, and to prove to us that she was well enough. At five Mrs. Woodward came and sat by her whilst Lea and I were occupied with last preparations. At 7 P.M. Mother was carried down and went off in a little low carriage with Mrs. Woodward and Lea, and I followed in a large carriage with Miss Finucane and the luggage. There was quite a collection of our poorer friends to see Mother off and kiss hands. At the railway the faithful Maria de Bonis was waiting, and she and Mrs. Woodward stayed with Mother and saw her carried straight through to the railway _coupé_ which was secured for us. We felt deeply taking leave of the kindest of friends, who has been such a comfort and blessing to us, certainly, next to you, the chief support of Mother's later years. 'Oh, _how_ beautiful it will be when the gates which are now ajar are quite open!' were her last words to Mother.

"The carriage was most comfortable.... Mother slept a little, and though she wailed occasionally, was certainly no worse than on ordinary nights. The dawn was lovely over the rich Tuscan valleys, so bright with corn and vines, tall cypresses, and high villa roofs. She was carried straight through to a carriage, and soon reached the succursale of the Alleanza, where the people know us and are most kind. In the afternoon she slept, and I drove up to Fiesole, where I had not been for twelve years, with Mr. and Mrs. Cummings, American friends."

"_Bologna, June 5._--I fear, after my last, you will be grievously disappointed to hear of us as no farther on our way. We can, however, only tell from hour to hour how soon we may be able to get on, and I find it entirely useless to make plans of any kind, as we are sure not to be able to keep them. On Tuesday a great thunderstorm prevented our leaving Florence, and on Wednesday and Thursday Mother was in such terrible suffering that it was impossible to think of it. On Friday evening there was a rally, and we came on at once, Mrs. Dallas helping us through the difficulties of the Florence Station, and Mr. and Mrs. Cummings following us here. I think I mentioned that Dr. Grigor said travelling at night, when there was no sun, was the only chance of her reaching England alive. Mother begs I will tell Charlotte that 'No words can describe her sufferings or my anxieties, but that she has been brought through wonderfully hitherto, and that she still hopes to reach England--_in time_.'"

JOURNAL.

"_Bologna, June 5._--Mr. Cummings says the great Church of S. Petronio here reminds him of the great Church universal--so vast the space, and so many chapels branching off, all so widely divided that in each a separate sermon and doctrine might be preached without distressing its neighbour, while yet all meet in the centre in one common whole, the common Church of Christ.

"An old American lady in the train had passed a summer at Vallombrosa. She said it was a place where to live was _life_ and where one could be happy when one was _unhappy_."

_To_ MISS LEYCESTER.

"_Susa, June 8, 1870._--The Mother continued in a most terribly suffering state all the time we were at Bologna--agonies of pain which gave no rest. Yesterday afternoon it was so intense that she implored me to try the railway as a counter-irritant, and we set off at half-past ten at night. But the train shook fearfully, and the journey was absolute torture to her. We have never had such a painful time. Lea and I were obliged to sit on the floor by turns, holding the poor hand, and trying to animate her courage to bear up, but her cries were terrible. We reached Turin at 5 A.M., where, in spite of all promises to the contrary, she had to be carried all round the station; but fortunately for the next hour the train was easier and she suffered less. She was carried by two men out of the station, and down the wet muddy road here, where she has a good room, and soon fell asleep from exhaustion. We arrived at 6.30 A.M., and shall stay till to-morrow morning. Her state is certainly one of incomparably more suffering than at Rome, and she feels the change of climate dreadfully."

"_Aix-les-Bains, June 9._--Last night, to my great relief, Colonel and Mrs. Cracroft and Miss Wilson arrived at Susa, and were the greatest possible help to us. We had obtained a _permesso_ for the Mother to be taken straight through to the Fell railway carriage, and her little procession started at 7 A.M., and she was carried from her bed to her seat in the railway. The Cracrofts sat all round us in the carriage, which was much better than strangers, and Miss Wilson was most kind in keeping her hands bathed with eau de Cologne, &c. She suffered much for the first two hours, but the train was wonderfully smooth and easy, so that really the dreaded Mont Cenis was the least distressing part of the journey. About the middle of the pass she revived a little, and noticed the flowers, which were lovely--such gentianellas, auriculas, large golden lilies, &c. At S. Michel she bore the being carried about tolerably, so we were able to come on here, and arrived about four. Mother desires I will say to Charlotte, 'Hitherto the Lord hath helped me.'"

"_Macon, June 12._--No farther on our way than this. Mother was rather less suffering on Friday, and she bore the move from Aix and the dreaded change at Culoz better than we expected, but in the latter part of our four hours' journey she was fearfully exhausted, and arrived here (at the hotel looking out on the Saone and the wide-stretching poplar plains) in a sad state.... It is impossible to move on yet.

"Yesterday, while she was sleeping, I drove to Cluny, the queen of French abbeys. A great deal is left, and it is a most interesting and beautiful place. I also saw Lamartine's little château of Monceaux, described in his 'Confidences.' All his things and his library were being sold under the chestnut-trees in front of the house. I just came up in time to buy the old apple-green silk quilt[420] from the bed of his saint-like mother, described in 'Le Manuscrit de ma Mère.'"

"_Montbard, June 13._--Mother was so anxious to attempt coming on, that we left Macon at half-past eleven to-day, arriving here at four. To our dismay, when she had been taken out of the carriage and laid flat upon the platform, and the train had gone off, we found the station hotel closed. However, she was well carried on a chair down a lane to the so-called Hôtel de la Poste--an old-fashioned farm-house in a garden of roses; everything clean, pretty, and quaint; no sound but cocks and hens crowing and cackling; delicious farm-house bread, butter, and milk. Montbard is the place where Buffon lived in a very picturesque old château and gardens. Mother seems revived by the intense quiet and fresh country air. The old landlord and his wife are quite pictures--such clever, kind old faces, reminding one of La Sarte in 'Citoyenne Jacqueline.'"

"_Paris, June 14._--This morning was like a respite! Mother lay so quiet that I was actually able to draw as in the old days, which now seem in the far distance; and I took a little carriage to the lovely cloistered château of Fontenay, which I had long wished to see, and where I had luncheon with the charming owner, Madame de Montgolfier, and her two sons, people who own immense factories in the valley and devote their whole lives to the good of their workpeople. On my return I found Mother so far better that we could prepare her for the one o'clock express. She had a bath-chair to the station, and bore it well; but she was terribly tried by the five hours' journey, and being very ill carried at Paris, arrived at the hotel utterly prostrated. We _hope_ to go on to-morrow, but all is most uncertain."

"_Dover Station, June 16._--We are here, with intense thankfulness. Mother looked so ill and aged this morning we did not hope to move her, but she had a sudden rally in the middle of the day, so at 6 P.M. we were able to prepare her, and had her carried through the station to a carriage before the mob of people came.... We dreaded arriving at Calais, but she was carried in an arm-chair to the steamer, which was fortunately at the near quay and no steps. Of course our little procession was the last to arrive, and every place was taken; but Miss Charlotte Cushman,[423] who had comfortably established herself in the cabin, with a calm dignity which is irresistible at once directed the men to put Mother down in her place, and went up on deck.

"The sea was like glass--lovely moonlight and sunrise, and we seemed to be at Dover before we left Calais. A sailor carried Mother in his arms to the railway carriage, in which we were allowed to go as far as the station platform, and here we are. A porter has fetched cups of tea, and we have four hours to wait.

"We shall be glad of a visit from you as early as you like to come next week. I should not like you to defer coming long, as, though I have no _special_ cause for apprehension, still in Mother's critical state every day is precious. You will find her terribly altered in all respects, though the mind and memory are quite clear _at the moment_. None of her doctors give any hope whatever of amendment; but you will understand the position much better when you see it, only I am anxious that you should help me to face what is inevitable, instead of striving after what cannot be. Let us seek to alleviate suffering, not struggle after an impossible cure which may hasten the end."

_To_ MISS WRIGHT.

"_Holmhurst, June 17._--I know you will truly rejoice with and _for_ us that we have arrived in safety, and that my poor suffering Mother has her great wish of seeing her little home once more. You will imagine what the journey has been, as she is now utterly helpless, nearly blind, and never free from acute suffering in the spine and arm, which is often agony. At Rome it was generally thought quite impossible that she could survive the journey, and nothing but her faith and patience, and her self-control, have enabled us to get through it. We never could make a plan, but just seized the happy moment when she was a shade better, and at once pushed on a step. She was, of course, carried everywhere, and people were wonderfully kind; we had always somebody to go with us and smooth the difficulties of the railway stations--either old friends or people who were at my lectures at Rome and met us accidentally.

"When we arrived, all the old servants were terribly overcome to see their beloved mistress carried in so changed and helpless. She is still very ill, but unspeakably thankful to be here, and to feel that the journey is done. My life is, and must continue to be, one of constant watching."

"_July 21._--Our letters are now our only intercourse with the world beyond the gates of Holmhurst, which I never leave; but indeed I can seldom leave the house before 8 P.M., when I walk round the fields while Mother is prepared for the night. Though it is now the only thing I ever think of, it is very difficult to occupy and cheer her days, for she cannot bear any consecutive reading. Sometimes I read, and tell her what I have read as a kind of story. She is seldom up before 3 P.M., and then is carried down to the lawn in her dressing-gown, and up again at four, when she is sometimes able to look at a book for a few minutes. That which is oftenest in her hand is the little 'Invalid's Friend' which you gave her, and she desires me to tell you how often she finds comfort in it.... For the last fortnight we have been entirely alone, which has been really best for her, as, though she has enjoyed seeing those she loved, each _departure_ has made her worse.

"I write much at my 'Walks in Rome' in her room, and my ancient history is so imperfect I have plenty to study, which acts as a sort of mental tonic."

_From my_ JOURNAL (The Green Book).

"_June 26._--My darling often _talks_ to me in her hymns. To-night, when I left her, she said with her lovely sweetness, 'Good-night, darling.

"Go, sleep like closing flowers at night, And Heaven your morn will bless."'

"'I never wish to leave you,' she said the other day. 'I never wish for death; always remember that. I should like to stay with you as long as I can.' And another day, 'I must call you "my daughter-son," as Mrs. Colquhoun did hers: as long as I have you, I suppose I can bear anything; but if you were taken away, or if I had never had you, my life would be indeed desolate: I could not have lived on.... I try so not to groan when you are here, you must not grudge me a few groans when you are out of the room.'"

"_July 18._--'I had such a sweet dream of your Aunt Lucy last night. I thought we were together again, and I said, "How I do miss you!" and she said she was near me. I suppose I had been thinking of--

"Saints in glory perfect made Wait thine escort through the shade."

I think perhaps I had been thinking of that. Dear Aunt Lucy, how she would have grieved to see me now!'"

"_July 19._--'Yes, I know the psalms; many in your Uncle Julius's version too. Many a time it keeps me quiet for hours to know and repeat them. I should never have got through my journey if I had not had so many to repeat and to still the impatience.'"

_To_ MISS WRIGHT.

"_Holmhurst, July 31, 1870._--I continue to work on steadily at my book in the sick-room. I have just got Murray's Roman Handbook, and am amazed to see how much better it is than I expected; but I am glad I have not seen it before, as, though I have already given even all his newest information, I have told it so _oddly_ differently.

"The sweet Mother continues much the same. She is carried out each fine afternoon to sit for an hour near the weeping ash-tree on the lawn, and enjoys the sunshine and flowers.... In this quiet garden, and never going beyond the gates, everything seems very _far_ off, and I am beginning to have quite a sympathy with the hermits, and to wonder the race does not continue: it is certainly more reasonable than that of the monks. A great peace seems to have fallen upon us. As I see my helpless Mother's quiet happiness, and share it, I think of Richard Crashaw's lines--

'How many unknown worlds there are Of comforts, which Thou hast in keeping! How many thousand mercies there In Pity's soft lap lie a-sleeping! Happy she who has the art To awake them And to take them Home, and lodge them in her heart.'"

_From my_ JOURNAL (The Green Book).

"_August 8._--It is inexpressibly touching to me how Mother now seems to have an insight into my past feelings which she never had before, and to understand and sympathise with childish sufferings which she never perceived at the time, or from which she would have turned aside if she had perceived them. To-day, after her dinner, she said most touchingly, watching till every one went away and calling me close to her pillow--'I want to make my confession to you, darling. I often feel I have never been half tender enough to you. I feel it now, and I should like you to know it. You are such a comfort and blessing to me, dearest, and I thought perhaps I might die suddenly, and never have told you so. I cannot bear your being tied here, and yet I do not know how I could do without you, you are so great a blessing to me.'

"And oh! in the desolate future what a comfort these few words will contain! But I said--'No, darling, I am not tied: you know it is just what I like. I know you could not do without me, but then I could not do without you, so it is just the same for both of us.'"

"_August 26._--To-day is the anniversary of my adoption, what Mother used to call my Hurstmonceaux birthday. She remembered it when I went to her, and said touchingly--'God be thanked for having given me my child, for having preserved him, for having strengthened him. May he live to His glory, and may I die to His praise.... Pray that He may forgive the past, watch over the present, and guide the future.' Later she said--'It is very seldom that a woman's future is settled at thirty-five, as mine was. I was not only a widow, but my adopting a child showed to all the world that I should never marry again.... I can only make a meditation,' she said; 'I have no strength to make a prayer.... I have long been obliged to pray in snatches--in moments.... I am so glad that I know so many psalms, hymns, and collects; they are such a comfort to me now. I could think of nothing more, but these I dwell upon.... Sometimes when I can think of nothing else I take the Lord's Prayer, and lie still to make a meditation upon each separate clause.' When I left her at night she said fervently--'Good-night, my own dear love, my blessing: may I be your blessing, as you are mine.'"

In our quiet life, the news of the war in France, the siege of Paris, &c., reached us like far-off echoes. My mother cared little to hear of it, but shared with me in anxiety as to the fate of the excellent people we had so lately left at Montbard and Fontenay, which were overrun by the Prussians. On September 8 the Empress Eugenie took refuge at Hastings, and two days after walked up the hill past our gate. She was joined at Hastings by the Prince Imperial. I little thought then that I should afterwards know him so well.

JOURNAL.

"_Sept. 10, 1870._--Lea has just been saying, 'You may go and count the trees to-day, for I've nothing for you for dinner. The butcher's never been, good-for-nothing fellow! he's gone gawking after that Empress, I'll be bound.'"

Almost all my Mother's nieces and many old friends came to see her in the summer, generally staying only two or three days, but her dear cousin, Charlotte Leycester, came for the whole of September. While she was here at Holmhurst I was persuaded to go away for two days, and went to see Dean Alford at his cottage of Vine's Gate in the Kentish Hills. He was more charming than ever, and more eccentric, never wearing stockings, and shoes only when he went out. I was miserable, in my short absence, with anxiety, which cost me far more than the refreshment of change could replace; but I was led to go to see the Dean by one of those strange presentiments for which I have never been able to account. It was my last sight of this dear friend, with whom I have been more really intimate than with perhaps any one else, in spite of the great difference of age and position. Dean Alford died in the following winter, but it was at a time when, in my own intense desolation, all minor sorrows fell dumb and dead. But his grave, in St. Martin's Churchyard at Canterbury, is always a very sacred spot to me.

I must record a visit which we received soon after my return home, as it led to a friendship which was one of the great pleasures of many following years. One morning, as I was sitting in my Mother's room as usual, a card with "Mrs. Grove, Oakhurst," was brought up to me, and, as I opened the drawing-room door, I saw an old lady with the very sweetest and dearest face I ever set eyes upon, in a primitive-looking hat and apron, and with a basket on her arm, and I fell in love with her at once. She came often afterwards to see my Mother, who greatly appreciated her; and after my Mother's sweet life passed away, it is difficult to say how much of my home interest was associated with Oakhurst, with the ready sympathy and old-fashioned knowledge of this dear Mrs. Grove, and with her daughter, Mrs. Baillie Hamilton, and her two grand-daughters, now Mrs. Spencer Smith and Mrs. Hamilton Seymour. Alas! as I write this,[424] the dear Mrs. Grove, in her great age, is herself rapidly fading heavenwards--but so gently, so surrounded by the love which her own loving-kindness has called forth, that death is indeed coming as a friend, gently and tenderly leading her into the visible presence of the Saviour, in whose invisible presence she has so long lived and served.

JOURNAL (The Green Book).

"_Holmhurst, Oct. 20, 1870._--Mother said to-day, 'I always think that walking through the Roman picture-galleries is like walking through the Old and New Testament with the blessed company of apostles and martyrs beside one.... I am so fond of that prayer "for all sorts and conditions of men," not only for my invalid state, but it is _all_ so appropriate to the present time--the petition for peace and unity, &c.'"

"_Oct. 23, Sunday._--'Alas! another Sunday in bed,' said Mother this morning.

"'But, darling, you need not regret it; all the days are Sundays to you.'

"'Yes; but to-day I woke early, and have said all my little Sunday hymns and psalms.'

"Truly with her, 'Les prières de la nuit font la sérénité du jour.'"[425]

"_Oct. 26._--'My dear child is never cross to me, _never_; and always appears just at the very moment I want anything.'"

_To_ MISS WRIGHT.

"_Holmhurst, Oct. 28, 1870._--I am so glad you have been here, and can fancy our perfectly quiet, eventless life, the coming and going in the Mother's sick-room, and her gentle happiness in all the little pleasures which are spared to her. Since you were here she has been not so well, from the wet and cold, I suppose, the sight dimmer and the other powers weaker; but the symptoms are ever varying, and, when it is thus, I almost never leave her--watch her sleeping and try to amuse her waking.

"To-day my absent hour was sadly engaged in attending the funeral of my dear old friend, Mrs. Dixon,[426] who died quite peacefully last Saturday, a long illness ending in two days of merciful unconsciousness. She was buried at Ore, in Emma Simpkinson's grave. Many deeply mourn her, for few were more sincere and cordial, more affectionate and sympathising."

JOURNAL (The Green Book).

"_Nov. 1, 1870._--My darling has had two months of comparative freedom from pain, with many hours of real pleasure, in which she was often carried down and sat out in her bath-chair amongst the flower-beds in the sunshine. Sitting under the ash-tree shade, she has been able to see many friends--Mrs. Wagner, Mrs. Grove, old Mrs. Vansittart Neale at ninety, and Lady Waldegrave. Charlotte Leycester was here for six weeks, and the Mother was then so far better that it was a great source of enjoyment to both the cousins. Since then she has ailed more frequently, and has had occasional recurrence of the old pain in her arm. I have sat constantly writing in her room, laying aside 'Walks in Rome' for a time, and devoting myself to writing the Family Memorials. For the dear Mother has wished me to continue the work she began long ago of writing the life of Augustus and Julius Hare. I represented that, as one of these died before I was born, and I had never appreciated the other as she had done, it would be impossible for me to do this, unless she would permit me to make her, who had been the sunshine of my own life, the central figure of the picture. At first she laughed at the idea, but, after a day or two, she said that, as, with the sole exception of Charlotte Leycester, all who had shared her earlier life had passed away, she could not oppose my wish that the simple experience of her own life, and God's guidance in her case, might, if I thought it could be so, be made useful for others. And, as she has accustomed herself to this thought, she has lately taken real pleasure in it. She laughs at what she calls my 'building her mausoleum in her lifetime,' but has almost grown, I think, to look upon her own life and her own experience as if it were that of another in whom she was interested, and to read it and hear it in the same way. She has given me many journals and letters of various kinds which I might use, and has directed the arrangement of others. I have already written the two earliest chapters of her married life, and read most of them to her, but she stopped me at last, saying that they interested her too deeply. She frequently asks now--'Are you writing the Memorials, or only "Walks in Rome"?' and it is a proof how clear her understanding still is, that some weeks ago she wisely directed me, if the work was ever carried out, to evade all wearying discussion by consulting no one, and that I should on no account show it to any one of the family, especially the Stanleys, till it was finished, when they might judge of it as a _whole_.

"Sometimes the dear Mother has herself been able to write some of her 'Ricordi,' as she calls them, and, with her trembling hand, has filled a whole little volume with the recollections of her youth, but this has often been too much for her.... After her tea at four o'clock, I have generally read some story to her till she has gone to bed, and after that a chapter and some hymns. There is a passage in one of George Eliot's autobiographical sonnets, in which, referring to her mother, she speaks of 'the benediction of her gaze'; how often have I experienced this!"

"_Nov. 4._--Last night I read to the Mother Luke xvii. and a hymn on 'Rest' which she asked for. When I was going to wish her good-night she said--'I do hope, darling, I am not like the ungrateful lepers. I try to be always praising God, but I know that I can never praise Him enough for His many, many mercies to me.' I could not but feel, in the alarm afterwards, if my dearest Mother never spoke to me again, what beautiful last words those would have been, and how characteristic of her. Oh, goodness in life brings us near to God: not death! not death!

"At 2 P.M. I was awakened by the dreadful sound which has haunted me ever since the night of March 12 in the Via Gregoriana--of Lea rushing along the passage and flinging open the door--'Come directly'--no time for more words--and of running through the dark gallery and finding the terrible change--another paralytic seizure--calling up John and sending him off to Battle for the doctor, and kneeling by the bedside, consoling her if possibly conscious, and watching for the faint dawn of visible life, that the first words might be tender ones, the first look one of love, ... and it was so--that my darling's first words were something tender, indefinite, but spoken to me. The entire unconsciousness was not long. When the doctor arrived the face was almost natural, but he saw that it had been a regular seizure. By 8 A.M. she was nearly herself again, and anxious to know what could have happened. She had been frightened by seeing the doctor. She appeared to have no pain, and there is no additional injury to the powers. To-day has been a constant watching, rather a warding off from her of any possible excitement than anything else.... In all the anguish of anxiety, I cannot be thankful enough for what we have, especially the freedom from pain."

"_Nov. 9._--No great change--a happy painless state, the mind very feeble, its power gone, but peaceful, loving, full of patience, faith, and thankfulness."

"_Nov. 16._--And since I wrote last, the great, the most unutterable desolation, so long looked for, so often warded off, has come upon me. Oh! while they can still be attained, let me gather up the precious fragments that remain.

"On Thursday the 10th my darling was much better, though her mind was a little feeble. I felt then, as I feel a thousand times now, how extraordinary people were who spoke of the trial my darling's mental feebleness would be to me. It only endeared her to me a thousandfold--her gentle confidence, her sweet clinging to me to supply the words and ideas which no longer came unsought, made her only more unspeakably lovable. On that day I remember that my darling mentioned several times that she heard beautiful music. This made no impression on me _then_.

"Friday the 11th, I sat, as usual, all morning in her room correcting my book. I forget whether it was that morning or the next that my darling on waking from sleep said that she had had such a pleasant dream of her childhood and Adderley and 'old Lady Corbet,' who first taught her to 'love what was beautiful.'[427] At 2 P.M. Mother was up, and sat in her arm-chair by the fire. She was partly dressed, and wore her pretty old-fashioned cap with the strings tied in a bow on the top of the head, and a little red cloak which Miss Wright had given her: I remember thinking she looked so pretty, and telling her so. I was out at first, while she wrote a little letter to Fanny Tatton,[428] and talked to Lea about the texts she had been reading. At four, she had her tea, and then I sat at her feet, and my darling talked most sweetly about all the places she had admired most in her life--of Llangollen in her childhood, and of Capel Curig, of her visit to Rhianva, and of many places abroad, Narni with its woods and river, and more especially Villar in the Vaudois, of which I had been making a drawing, which she had desired to have set up that she might look at it. Then she asked to have one of her old journals read, and I read one of Rome, and she spoke of how much happiness, how many blessings, she had connected with Rome also, though much of suffering. She was especially bright and sunny. I remember saying to her playfully, 'Take a little notice of me, darling; you do not take enough notice of me,' and her stroking my head and saying, 'You dear child,' and laughing.

"At six o'clock my sweetest one was put to bed.

"Afterwards I read to her a chapter in St. Luke--'Let this cup pass from me,' &c., and sat in her room till half-past nine. When I went downstairs I kissed her and said, 'Have a good _good_ night, darling.' I cannot recollect that she spoke, but I remember looking back as I opened the door, and seeing my sweet Mother lying on her side as she always did, and her dear eyes following me with a more than usually tender expression as I left the room.

"I have often thought since of a sentence in Carlyle's 'Life of Sterling'--'Softly, as a common evening, the last of our evenings passed away, and no other would come to me for evermore.'

"When I went upstairs again at half-past ten, I went, as I always did, to listen at her door, and, hearing a noise, went in. Terrible illness had come on and continued for hours.... The next thirty-six hours I never left her for an instant, and they all seem to me like one long terrible night. I remember very little distinctly, but at eight on Saturday morning she was certainly much better. The doctor came at ten, and she was able to speak to him. He looked very grave over the lowness of her pulse, but she continued better for some hours, and slept a great deal in the afternoon. Towards evening I thought her not so well, though the doctor, who came at half-past nine, considered her state much less anxious. I was then possessed with the feeling that our parting was very near. Lea also called me downstairs to hear the extraordinary sound that was going on. It was indeed strange. It was as if hundreds of thousands of crickets were all chirping together. They appeared everywhere in swarms on the hearths downstairs. The noise was so great that I felt if it continued we should be driven out of the place: it was quite deafening; but they only came that night, they never were heard before, and the next day they had totally disappeared.[429] I persuaded Lea to lie down on her bed, where she soon fell asleep. All through the night I sat by my darling on the pillow. I think the last thing she said was that the other arm, the well arm, pained her very much, and we feared paralysis, but more pressing symptoms diverted attention. At half-past one I called Lea again. I shall never know in this world whether my Mother was really conscious, if she even knew anything either of her own great physical suffering, or of what passed that night. I believe God helped me to say and do all she would have wished. Each hour I was more sure of what was coming. Towards dawn, kneeling on the bed, I said some of the short prayers in the Visitation of the Sick, but she was then fading rapidly, and at last I repeated the hymn 'How bright those glorious spirits shine,' which we had always agreed was never to be used except as the solemn sign that our parting was surely come. I am not sure if my darling knew that she was dying before: I am sure, if she could still hear, that she knew it then. I am sure that she was conscious at the end and that she speechlessly took leave of us. Her expression was calm and serene, but very grave, as if she realised for the first time that I might not travel with her into the solitude she was entering. It was about a quarter of an hour before the end that all suffering ceased, her paralysed side seemed to become quite well; the lame hand, which had been so tightly clenched since the 13th of March, unfolded then upon the 13th of November, and gently met the other in prayer. The eyes were closing, but opened once more--as a look--a look of youth and radiance, stole over the beloved features at the last, when there was no struggle, only just a gentle sigh or two. Lea, who was leaning over the bed on the other side, held her spectacles to the mouth. There was no breath. I could scarcely believe that she was gone. I still held her in my arms. But oh! in my unutterable desolation I could give God thanks that the end was like this. The first stroke of the church-bell sounded as she passed into the real life.

"When the sweet eyes closed and the dear face lost its last shadow of colour, I kissed my own Mother for the last time and came away. The first snowflakes of winter were falling then. They do not signify now: no snow or cold can ever signify any more.

"But oh! the agony, the anguish!

"And since then her precious earthly form has been lying, with her hands folded on her breast as if she were praying--the dear lame hand quite well _now_. The room is draped with white and filled with flowers. Two large white camellias stand at the head of the bed and overshadow her pillow, and on the table, draped with white, are her own particular objects, her bronze wolf, her little gold tray with her spectacles, smelling-bottle, &c., and all her special hymn-books. At first when I went in, in my great agony, I did not draw down the sheet. But now I draw it down and look at my dearest one. There is a look of unearthly serene repose upon the worn features, which is almost too beautiful.

"'Days without night, joys without sorrow, sanctity without sin, charity without stain, possession without fear, satiety without envyings, communication of joys without lessening, and they shall dwell in a blessed country, where an enemy never entered, and from whence a friend never went away.'[430]

"But yet--oh my darling! my darling!"

_To_ MISS LEYCESTER.

"_Sunday morning, Nov. 13._--My darling Mother has entered into the real life.

"She grew gradually weaker hour by hour, and I think she suffered less. She knew me always, and liked to keep her eyes constantly fixed upon me, but she could not speak. At half-past nine, she seemed sinking, and I repeated over to her, as she desired me to do when she was dying, the hymn 'How bright those glorious spirits shine.' I think she heard it.... Soon after she opened her eyes and gave me a long, long look of her own perfect lovingness, then turned to Lea, to me again, and we heard a few gentle sighs. I had just time to ring the bell close to my hand as I sat on the pillow, and as John and Harriet[431] (who had been waiting in the passage) passed sobbing into the room and stood at the foot of the bed, my sweet darling gently breathed her last in my arms, once more--quite at the last--opening her eyes, with a look of perfect bliss, as if gazing at something beyond us. It was so gentle a breathing out of her spirit, we scarcely knew when it was over. She died in my arms, with my kiss upon her forehead, at half-past ten. I know how tenderly my Mother's dearest, most tenderly loved friend feels for me, and that I need not ask her to pray for my Mother's poor child Augustus."

"_Nov. 14._--It seems so strange to look out of the window and see the same sheep feeding in the same green meadows, the same flowers blooming, and yet such a change over all. I feel as if it were I who had died yesterday.

"What a long, long day it was! A thousand times I was on the point of running into the room to say some little loving word to her who has been the recipient of every thought, _every_ pleasure for so many, many years, and then the crushing blank, the annihilation came all afresh. Indeed, I feel it afresh every quarter of an hour, and when I am calmed after one thing in which my great desolation is especially presented to me, something else calls it all forth again. Oh, my darling! my darling! can it be? oh! how can it be?

"The dear earthly form lies with its hands sweetly folded as if she were praying. I go in often. I am always going in; but it does not remind me of her, though it is most peaceful, and the servants and others have the greatest comfort from looking at it.

"It is as a dream that yesterday morning, quite after it was over, I could say 'The day before yesterday my darling did this, my darling said that.' On Friday she was so bright, so happy, only her memory a little astray, but I was already forming a thousand little schemes for supplying this lost power, so that it should not be apparent to others, and to me _nothing_, I felt, could ever matter if the sunshine of my dear Mother's sweet presence was with me under any change."

"_Tuesday, Nov. 15._--Your most dear letter has come.... How much, even in the first anguish of my desolation, I have felt what it would be to you also. You will always be most tenderly entwined with her sacred memory; indeed, I can scarcely think of you apart. For the last few years especially your companionship has been her greatest joy, and in your absence she has never passed many hours without speaking of you, never _any_, I think, without thinking of you. The grief she most dreaded was that she might have to mourn for you, for I think she rightly felt that--great as the sorrow would be--your physical powers would enable you to bear the separation better than she could have done.

"This morning I feel a little better, and can dwell more upon my darling's being perfected, upon the restoration of all her powers, upon her reunion to those she loved in former times of her life; and I have a perfect treasure-store in my journals for years of her sacred words of blessing, and advice, and thought for me, many of them, I know, intended to be my comfort now.

"I will send you many of the letters about her. I wonder why people should dread letters of sympathy. To me the letters are nothing, but what I long for is not to hear that people sympathise with me, but to know how they loved her.

"To-day it is thick snow. Oh! she would have been so ill; now she is not ill."

"_Tuesday evening, Nov. 15._--To-day a change came over the dear face--a look of unspeakable repose and beauty such as I never saw on any face before. The servants told me of it, and so it was; it is the most wonderful expression--serene, solemn, holy beauty.

"All the letters are a great--not comfort--nothing can ever be that, but I like to see how she was loved, and I look forward to them. There were thirty to-day, and yet I thought no one could know. What comes home to one is simple sympathy. One cannot help envying the people who can be comforted in real sorrow by what one may call Evangelical topics. It seems so perfectly irrelative to hear that 'man is born to trouble,' that 'it is God that chasteneth,' &c.

"I recollect now that on Saturday morning I was obliged to send off some proof-sheets.[432] She asked what I was doing, and then said, 'I shall so enjoy reading it when it is all finished, but I must have my little desk out then, because I shall not be able to hold the book.' We have only just remembered this, which proves that there must have been a slight rally then. It was all so short, so bewildering at last, that things will only come back gradually.

"I shall be glad when the incessant noise of workmen[433] downstairs ceases. It is so incongruous in the house now, but could not be helped. My darling did not mind it; indeed it seems to me, on looking back, as if she never found fault with anything; often she did not hear it, and when she did, 'I like that pleasant sound,' she said."

"_Nov. 16._--There were forty letters to-day, many wanting answers, so I can only write a little, but it is a comfort to me to send you any memories of those precious last days as they occur to me, and as the first _mist_ of anguish clears up, so many things recur.

"You asked about Romo. Indeed it overwhelms me to think of it. The dear little beast is so touching in his attempts to comfort me. He comes and licks my hand and rubs himself against me, as he never was in the habit of doing. In the first sad moments after the dear eyes closed, Lea, by an old Northern custom, would send down to '_tell_ the dog and the bees' (the bees would have died, she thinks, if they had not been told), and Romo understood it all, and did not howl, but cried plaintively all morning.

"I forget whether I spoke of the music. For the last four days my darling had said at intervals that she heard beautiful music. Thursday and Friday I thought nothing of it; on Saturday it began to have a solemn meaning.

"I have been to-day to Hurstmonceaux. It was necessary. There was deep snow the first part of the way, but beyond Battle no snow at all, leaves still on the trees, and quite a summer look. It was more overpowering to me than I expected to pass Lime, and I almost expected to see _her_ come across the field and open the wicket-gate to her beloved walk to the school. The Haringtons[434] were most kind in placing Hurstmonceaux Place at our disposal for the funeral, and removed all scruples about it by saying how really thankful they were to be able to show their affection for the Mother in that way. I went up twice to the church. The road thither and the churchyard looked most beautiful, and the spot chosen, on the edge towards the level, with the view she always thought so like the Campagna. I am allowed to enclose a little space, which will contain my grave also.

"I called on Mrs. W. Isted,[435] and found her quite overpowered, sitting with my darling's photograph. 'It is not only her own loss, dearly as I loved her, but the deaths of all my others come back to me, which she helped me to bear.'"

"_Nov. 17._--Do you know that through a mist of tears I have been forced to go on sending off proof-sheets of 'Walks in Rome'? One of the last things she spoke of was her hope that I would not let her illness hinder the book. The dedication to her, already printed, will seem touching to those who read it. She herself read _that_ when the first volume was finished. But her great pleasure of the last few weeks was in the chapters of the 'Memorials' which I was writing of her Alton life. To continue them with the copious materials she has left will now be my one great interest. She has left me perfectly free to make what use I like of all, and one day made me write down from her dictation an expression to that effect. The Alton life is certainly the most perfect ideal of a country clergyman's life that can well be conceived."

"_Nov. 19._--I cannot leave home yet.... Leycester, Mamie, and many others have written, as she always said they would, that their hearts and houses are open to receive me, but this must be later. Indeed, I shall cling to all she loved, and in the ever-living remembrance of her shall be able to love _all_. I had even a kind note from Mrs. Maurice[436] to-day: she said I should.

"Henry Papillon came yesterday, touchingly wishful to look upon the dear face once more, and he was even more struck than I expected with its immortal beauty.... To-day was a great wrench. This morning the precious earthly form was sealed away from us."

"_Nov. 22._--I went through yesterday in a dream. I did not realise it at all. Lea left Holmhurst in an agony of sobs and tears, but I did not; I had so often thought of it, I seemed to have gone through it all before, and then I had already lost sight of my darling.

"Lea, John, Johnnie Cornford, and I went in the little carriage _first_; Harriet, Anne, Rogers, Joe, and Margaret Cornford[437] followed _her_. We reached Hurstmonceaux Place about half-past twelve. In half-an-hour they all began to arrive: each and all of my dear cousins were most kind to me."

JOURNAL (The Green Book).

"_Dec. 4, 1870._--I have been unable to write in my journal, the hundred and ninety-two letters which I have had to answer have taken all the time.... And I live still. I used to think I could not live, but I am not even ill; and yet how my life is changed, all the interest, all the happiness, all the sunshine gone, only the systematic routine of existence left.

"My poor Lea is already beginning to be interested in her chickens and her farm-life, and to think it all 'such a long time ago.' But to me it seems as if it had only just happened, and the hour in which her sweet eyes closed upon me has swallowed up all the hours which have come since, and is always the last hour to me.

"I think it was about the third day afterwards that Lea came into my room and told me that the look of wonderful beauty and repose which appeared at the last had come back again to the dear features. And so it was. It was the sweetest look of calm, serene repose. The colour had all faded out of my darling's cheeks, which had lost every sign of age, and were smooth and white as if they were chiselled in marble. Her closed eyelids, her gently curving mouth expressed the sweetest restfulness. The dear lame hand, quite supple at last, had closed softly upon the other. And this lovely image of her perfected state was lent to me till the last, when the beloved features were closed away from me for ever.

"It was on the Saturday that Lea and I went in together for the last time. Lea cried violently. I was beyond tears. We covered away together all that was dearest to us on earth. I placed a lock of my hair in her hands, and laid her favourite flowers by her. Monday a day of rain and storm-cloud. I shall always associate the road to Hurstmonceaux with the drive on that winter's morning with swirling rain-clouds, and the waters out on the distant Levels gleaming white through the mist. Coming down the hill near Boreham how many memories of my dearest one came back to me,--of her anxiety to put me out to walk at Standard Hill,--of her admiration of the three pines on the hill-top; and then, near Lime, of walks with her on dewy summer mornings, when I went with her in my childhood to pick ground-ivy and violets in the fields behind Lime Cross.

"The coffin lay in the centre of the drawing-room at Hurstmonceaux Place, upon a high raised stand draped with white. All around it hung a lovely wreath of flowers from Holmhurst, and at the foot masses of flowers kindly sent by the present owners of Lime. Mrs. H. Papillon[438] had sent a beautiful cross of white chrysanthemums, and some one else a wreath, and in the centre, linking all with a reminiscence of her sister Lucy, lay a bunch of withered violets from Abbots Kerswell. Here, over the coffin of her whose life was perfect peace, the two great enemies in the parish of Hurstmonceaux shook hands and were reconciled.

"At two the eighteen bearers, all chosen from labourers whom she had known, filed in in their white smock frocks and took up the precious burden. Lea and I followed immediately, then Leycester, Vere, and Emmie Penrhyn; Arthur, Augusta, and Mary Stanley; Morgan and Mamie Yeatman; Dr. Vaughan, Frederick Fisher, Mrs. Hale, and a long line of neighbours, clergy, and servants, walking two and two.

"Down the well-known avenue and lanes, the bearers advanced, looking like a great band of choristers. I saw nothing, but some of the others remarked that as we came away from the house a beautiful silver cloud and rainbow appeared over it.

"Arthur and Augusta left the procession at the foot of the hill and passed on before; so he met us at the gate.

"In the centre of the chancel, where I had seen the coffin of Uncle Julius, there the coffin of my own darling lay, but it was covered with no gloomy pall, only garlanded with flowers, the garlands of her new life.

"At the grave, Lea stood on one side of me, Emmie on the other. Arthur read most touchingly, and in the words of that service one was lifted up, not drawn down: but indeed I felt it very little, I only saw it in a dream.

"Afterwards I think they all came up and kissed me. Then they went away, and Lea and I walked back alone through the shrubbery to Hurstmonceaux Place, and so came home.

"To our most desolate home.

"On the Saturday after we went to Hurstmonceaux again. The Sunday services at the church were most beautiful. In the morning 'How bright those glorious spirits shine' was sung, and in the evening, almost in the dark, 'Pilgrims of the night.' Mr. Munn[439] preached on 'Bury me with my fathers--in the cave of Machpelah,' &c., speaking of how she was brought from a distant place, and how, in foreign lands, her great wish had been to be laid at Hurstmonceaux, and so to what I wished of the peculiar connection of my darling's life with Hurstmonceaux, and of how the different scenes in the parish which called up the remembrance of her sweet words and acts connected with them, might also call up the recollection of those truths to which her gentle life was a living witness. When Lea and I went out to the grave afterwards, we found two poor women--Mrs. Medhurst and Mrs. Harmer--standing there dressed in black, and the little mound covered with flowers.

"I saw it once again next day, and made a little wall of holly and ivy round it. Oh, my darling!--and then we returned here again, to the ordinary life, only the door of the sacred chamber stands open, and the room is cold and empty, and my heart and my life are desolate. 'The sanctuary of sorrow' seems to me an expression full of significance."

_To_ MISS LEYCESTER.

"_Holmhurst, Dec. 1, 1870._--Madame de Staël shows how she must have suffered when she wrote--'Le reveil, quel moment pour les malheureux!' To-day is the first of a month in which my darling has no share: each day there is something in which I seem to part with her afresh. My life is so changed that it seems impossible to believe that it is such a short time since I was so happy--only, between the present dumb blank and the happy time are those terrible thirty-six hours of illness, and in the thought of them I am more than satisfied that she cannot go through them again. Each minute of those hours comes back to me now so vividly--the acuteness of the numb misery, which _really_ had no hope, with the determination that she should see nothing but smiles to the last, for my whole life afterwards would be long enough for tears.

"Poor Lea sits with me now for an hour every day after tea, and we talk of every moment of those last days.

"It is most bitterly cold: she would have been _so_ ill."

"_Dec. 17._--Mrs. Tom Brassey passed me to-day, riding with a party. She made them go on, and stopped to speak to me, then burst into tears, and spoke most feelingly of old Mr. Brassey's death, to whom I believe she was truly attached. Then she revealed the enormous wealth to which they have fallen heirs. They expected to have no more, as the father had already given each of his sons an immense sum, but old Mr. Brassey has left six millions! She feels the awful responsibility of such a heritage, and spoke admirably and touchingly--said she trusted each of the three brothers would set out with the determination to spend it worthily of their father, and then of all their plans already made for the good of others. It seemed odd to come back from discussing all this to the great anxiety as to whether my income would amount to £500, and if I should be able to live on at Holmhurst.

"It is actually five weeks this evening since my darling was here, and we were entering upon the utter anguish of that last night. Sometimes the agony comes back to me, so that I am obliged to _do_ something which requires close attention to set it aside; but at other times--generally--I can think with composure of the five weeks she has spent well, and _warm_, and happy."

MRS. ARNOLD _to_ AUGUSTUS J. C. HARE.

"_Dingle Bank, Nov. 21, 1870._--You will be in such deep grief that I hardly know how to write to you; and yet I so loved the dear Mother you have lost, so reverenced her goodness and sweetness and holiness, that I cannot but hope you may like a few words from me of truest sympathy, and indeed I can feel for you. To those at a distance it is the thought of a dear friend transplanted from earth to heaven, but to you there is the thought of the daily companionship, the loving nursing, the perpetual consciousness of what you were to her. In this, however, in the sense of the continual help and comfort and love that she received from you, will be your great consolation.

"I have never lost the impression made on me by her own _more_ than resignation when she spoke to me at Rugby of her own separation from what was dearest to her upon earth--there seemed such joy in _his_ happiness, such a realising of it to herself, that earthly clouds and shadows disappeared.

"I will not say more now, but for _her_ dear sake, and that of my long and affectionate interest in you, I hope you will sometimes let me hear of you."

LADY EASTLAKE _to_ AUGUSTUS J. C. HARE.

"_7 Fitzroy Square, Dec. 4._--I have seen a notice in the _Times_ which has sent a pang through my heart, and hasten to tell you how intensely I feel for you. None but those who know the bitterness of a great sorrow can really sympathise with you, for only they can measure the length and breadth of the suffering. I know of no consolation but the conviction that God knows all and does all, and that He will reunite in His good time to the Beloved One. Sorrow is a mighty force, and its fruit ought to be commensurate: we sow truly in tears, but the reaping in joy is, I believe, reserved for another state. Still there is much to be done by sorrow's husbandry even here, and assuredly were the fruits of the Spirit to be attained without suffering, God would not put His poor children through it.

"I fear that life must look very joyless before you, and that all things for a time must seem altered, your very self most so. I can only say be patient with _yourself_, and take every mitigation that offers itself. I should be very glad to hear from you when you have heart and leisure. You have seen me in bitter anguish, and will not be shy of one who has drunk of that cup to the very dregs. God's holy will be done!"

INDEX

TO VOLS. I., II. AND III.

INDEX

A.

ABERDEEN, John, 7th Earl of, iii. 43.

Ackermann, Félix, i. 36, 97, 158; ii. 192, 195, 423; iii. 53-56, 338, 349. ---- Madame Victoire, i. 31, 32, 96, 339-340, 354-356; ii. 192, 195, 405, 422-423, 499; iii. 52-64, 189, 253, 308, 310-312, 339, 351.

---- Victoria, iii. 308, 311.

Acland, Sir Thomas, ii. 149.

Acuto, ii. 426, 438-441.

Adeane, Henry John, i. 214.

Adelaide de France, Madame, iii. 23. ---- Queen of England, i. 289, 294.

Aitkens, Mr., of Kingston-Lyle, ii. 140.

Alacoque, Marguerite Marie, ii. 445.

Albert, the Prince Consort, i. 302; ii. 286-288.

Albrecht, Archduke of Austria, ii. 35-36.

Alcock, Mrs., story of, iii. 118-123.

Alderley, i. 61, 66; ii. 292, 293.

Aldermaston, ii. 219.

Alexander, Mary Manning, Mrs., i. 185, 248-251, 357, 469, 481; ii. 128.

Alford, Henry, Dean of Canterbury, i. 479; ii. 390-391, 432-433; iii. 155-157, 393-394.

---- Lady Marian, i. 293; ii. 298; iii. 28, 368.

Alfriston, i. 505.

Alice, H.R.H. the Princess, of Hesse, ii. 288.

Allan, Charles Stuart, ii. 515.

----John Hay, ii. 515.

Alnwick, ii. 353; iii. 33.

Alston, Carlotta, i. 2.

----Mary Margaret, i. 2, 5.

Alton Barnes, i. 45-48, 191-192, 278; iii. 110.

Amboise, ii. 495.

Anderson, Mr., of Bradley, ii. 320.

Angoulême, Marie Thérèse de France, Duchesse d', ii. 298; iii. 43-44.

Antibes, iii. 145-149.

Antonelli, Cardinal, ii. 72; iii. 71.

Aponte, Dom Emmanuele, i. 6-8.

Aram, Eugene, ii. 332-334.

Arcachon, ii. 465.

Arkcoll, Mr. Thomas, ii. 228, 244.

Arles, iii. 184.

Arnold, Edward, iii. 329.

----Matthew, i. 177, 512.

----Mrs., i. 177; iii. 327-329, 418.

----Dr. Thomas, of Rugby, i. 160.

Ars, Jean Marie Vianney, le Curé d', ii. 417-420.

Ars, visit to, iii. 134-136.

Ashdown, ii. 229.

Atbelstan, Mr., ii. 270.

Aumale, Henri, Duc d', iii. 18.

Autun, iii. 320.

B.

Babington, Mrs. Catherine, ii. 351.

Bacon, Mrs. Nicholas, iii. 169.

Baden, Frederick William, Grand Duke, and Louisa, Grand Duchess of, iii. 109.

Baden-Baden, i. 384.

Bagot, Mr. Charles, iii. 132.

---- Lucia, Lady, iii. 32.

---- Lord and Lady, iii. 368.

Balcarres, Colin, 3rd Earl of, iii. 25.

---- James, 5th Earl of, iii. 24.

Bamborough Castle, ii. 271, 354; iii. 8, 170.

Bankhead, Charles, secretary of legation at Constantinople, i. 26.

---- Maria Horatia Paul, Mrs., i. 27, 28, 296.

Bar le Duc, iii. 333.

Barnard, Lady Anne, iii. 14, 27, 324-326, ???.

Barnard Castle, ii. 275, 340.

Barraud, Madame and Mademoiselle, ii. 116, 125-128.

Barrère, Madame, iii. 87.

Barrington, Hon. Adelaide, ii. 139.

---- Hon. Augusta, ii. 139.

---- George, 5th Viscount, ii. 310.

---- Jane, Viscountess, ii. 138, 140.

---- Shute, Bishop of Durham, ii. 139.

---- William Keppel, 6th Viscount, ii. 139, 140.

---- Mrs. Russell, i. 282.

Bassi, Laura, i. 7.

Bayley, Mrs., iii. 132-134.

Beaujour, Château de, ii. 500-503.

Beckett, ii. 138-140, 227, 229.

Beckwith, Mrs., of Silksworth, ii. 412.

Belgium, tour in, i. 377.

Belhaven, Hamilton, Lady, ii. 335-337, 354-355, 358; iii. 35-36.

Belhaven, Lord, ii. 354, 358; iii. 35, 45-46.

Bellagio, iii. 106.

Belsay, ii. 347.

Benalta, family story of, ii. 454-460.

Bengivenga, Francesca, iii. 200.

Bennet, Hon. Frederick, ii. 268-269.

---- Hon. George, ii. 268-269.

Bentley, Harriet, iii. 406, 412.

Benzoni, the sculptor, iii. 83.

Berchtesgaden, iii. 231.

Bergeret, Madame, story of, iii. 177-182.

Berkeley Castle, i. 287.

Berri, Caroline, Duchesse de, iii. 15-17, 43-44.

Berry, the Misses, i. 299-300.

Betharram, ii. 487.

Biarritz, ii. 488.

Bidart, ii. 489.

Birtles, iii. 117.

Blackett, Sir Edward and Lady, ii. 266-267, 341, 346; iii. 170, 323.

Blackwood, Sir Arthur, iii. 243.

Blake, Sir Francis, iii. 31.

---- William, the artist, iii. 14.

Blenkinsopp Castle, ii. 353.

Blessington, Harriet Power, Countess of, i. 20, 37; ii. 408.

Blomfield, Charles James, Bishop of London, i. 470.

Blommart, Miss Elizabeth, ii. 489.

Bodryddan, iii. 123.

Bologna, i. 7-9; iii. 380.

Bolvilliers, Comtesse de, i. 343-351.

Bonaparte, Cardinal Lucien, iii. 287.

Bonis, Madame Maria de, iii. 373, 378.

Bonnyrigg, ii. 341.

Borghese, Adèle, Princess, ii. 58.

---- Guendolina, Princess, ii. 58, 59.

---- Marc-Antonio, Prince, ii. 58, 375.

Borghese, Pauline, Princess, ii. 336.

---- Teresa, Princess, ii. 58; iii. 85, 193.

Bosanquet, Charles, of Rock, ii. 278.

---- Mrs., of Rock, ii. 279.

Bothwell Castle, iii. 48.

Bourbon, Louis Henri Joseph, Duc de, iii. 21-23.

Bourges, ii. 310.

Bowes, ii. 276.

Bowes, Lady Anna, ii. 172, 173.

---- John, of Streatlam, ii. 173, 178, 179, 274-276.

---- Mrs. John, ii. 275.

Bowles, Miss, iii. 294, 298.

Boyle, Carolina Amelia Poyntz, Lady, i. 89, 291-292.

---- Hon. Carolina Courtenay, i. 289-294, 436-437, 508-509; ii. 381-384.

---- Miss Mary, i. 293; iii. 368, 370.

Bozledeane Wood, i. 361.

Bracciano, iii. 375.

Bradley Manor in Devon, i. 287.

---- in Northumberland, ii. 320.

Bradley, Rev. Charles, i. 297-299, 303-315, 332-335, 368, 369, 390-393, 396-398, 408.

---- Mrs. Charles, i. 303, 307, 369.

Brainscleugh, ii. 358.

Brassey, Henry and Albert, ii. 391.

---- Mrs. Thomas, iii. 417.

Brewster, Sir David, iii. 40.

Bridgeman, Lady Selina, ii. 389.

Brimham Rocks, ii. 339.

Brinkburn Abbey, ii. 365.

Brodie, Sir Benjamin, i. 248.

Brougham and Vaux, Henry, 1st Lord, iii. 143-144.

Brown, Dr., Professor at Aberdeen, i. 11.

Browning, Elizabeth Barrett, ii. 91, 409.

---- Robert, ii. 408.

Brownlow, John, and Earl, ii. 137.

Bruce, Rev. J. Collingwood, the antiquarian, ii. 318; iii. 49.

---- Hon. Mrs. Robert, iii. 203.

Brymer, Archdeacon (of Wells), i. 338.

---- Marianne Wilkinson, Mrs., i. 338.

Buchanan, Miss Helen, iii. 81.

Bufalo, the Venerable Gaspare del, ii. 425, 442.

Bulkeley, Anna Maria Hare, Mrs., i. 3, 494.

Bulman, Mrs., ii. 346.

Bunsen, Charles de, ii. 109.

---- Chevalier, afterwards Baron, i. 161-163, 164, 465, 504.

---- Emilia de, iii. 109.

---- Frances de, ii. 293; iii. 109.

---- George de, i. 481.

---- Rev. Henry de, ii. 328.

---- Madame, afterwards Baroness, i. 465; ii. 293, 333-336.

---- Matilda de, ii. 293.

---- Theodore de, i. 464; ii. 294.

Buntingsdale, i. 144, 208; ii. 326-327.

Burney, Miss, ii. 436.

Burns, Robert, the poet, ii. 169.

Burr, Mrs. Higford, ii. 220.

Butler, Rev. W. J., Vicar of Wantage, ii. 222-224.

---- Mrs., i. 501.

C.

Caen, i. 319.

Caerlaverock Castle, ii. 164.

Caiëtani, Don Filippo. ii. 58.

---- Don Onorato, iii. 87.

Calotkin, Count, i. 15.

Cambo, ii. 490.

Cameron, Mr., and Lady Vere, ii. 8.

Cameron, Lady Vere, ii. 481-482.

Campbell, Charlotte Malcolm, Lady, i. 88.

---- Colin, i. 309, 310, 313.

Canevari, G. B., the portrait painter, ii. 75.

Cannes, iii. 136-150.

Canning, Charlotte, Countess, ii. 360; iii. 323.

Canterbury, i. 357-366; ii. 23-25; iii. 331-332, 394.

Capel, Monsignor, ii. 486.

Capheaton, ii. 350.

Capri, ii. 81.

Carew, Miss Julia Pole, iii. 372.

---- Mrs. Pole, iii. 375.

Carham, iii. 326.

Carlsruhe, i. 6; iii. 109.

Carlyle, Thomas, i. 166.

Carmichael, Sir William, iii. 46.

Caroline, Empress of Austria, ii. 42.

---- of Brunswick, Queen of England, iii. 14-15.

Carr of Hedgeley, family of, ii. 286.

Castel Fusano, ii. 390.

Castlecraig, iii. 46.

Castro, Don Alessandro del, iii. 193.

Cavendish, Admiral, and Mrs. George, ii. 94, 97.

---- Louisa, Hon. Mrs., i. 212.

---- Lord Richard, i. 212.

Cecchi, Cardinal, ii. 68.

Cecil, Lord Eustace, i. 241.

Cecinelli, Lucia, i. 53.

Cenci, Count Bolognetti, iii. 49, 85, 87.

Challinor, Mrs. Hannah, i. 150.

Chambord, Henri, Comte de, iii. 16-18.

Charles X., King of France, iii. 43.

Charlotte, Queen of England, ii. 436-437.

Charlotte, Princess, of Belgium, ii. 36, 37.

Charltons of Hesleyside, the, ii. 343.

Chartwell, i. 507; ii. 321.

Chase Dieu, Le, iii. 150.

Chequers, ii. 8.

Chesters, ii. 341; iii. 49.

Chetwode, Mrs. George, i. 157.

Chevreuse, ii. 125.

Chichester, Miss Catherine, ii. 94, 286.

Chillingham, ii. 267-271, 364; iii. 33.

Chingford, i. 312, 400.

Chipchase, ii. 343.

Cholmondeley, Mary Heber, Mrs., i. 142.

Christina, Queen, of Spain, ii. 57.

Civita Castellana, ii. 54.

Clarendon, Caroline, wife of the 5th Earl of, ii. 139.

Clayton, Mrs. Anne, ii. 318-319.

---- George Nathaniel, ii. 318, 353.

---- Isabel, Mrs. G. Nathaniel, ii. 318.

---- John, of Chesters, ii. 318, 343.

---- Miss, ii. 274, 318, 341-344.

---- Mr. Matthew, ii. 318-319.

Cleveland, William Henry, 1st Duke of, iii. 46.

Clifford, Captain, ii. 81.

Clinton, Lady Charles, ii. 477.

---- Lady Louisa, i. 383.

---- Miss Louisa, i. 59, 210, 257, 387-388.

Clive, Mrs. Archer, ii. 452-453.

Cluny, iii. 383.

Clutterbuck, Marianne Lyon, Mrs., of Warkworth, ii. 17, 284, 352.

Clyde, Falls of the, iii. 99.

Cobham, Claude Delaval, iii. 152-153.

Coigny, Augustin, Duc de, iii. 18-19.

Cole, Miss Florence, ii. 45, 54.

---- Miss Louisa, ii. 46.

Colegrave, Mrs. Francis, ii. 94, 286.

Coleman, Miss Sarah, i. 173.

Collatia, ii. 390.

Collins, Staunton, i. 153, 190.

Colonna, Isabella de Toledo, Princess, iii. 190.

Colquhoun, J. E. C., i. 507; ii. 322.

---- John Archibald, iii. 425.

Compton, Mrs., iii. 326.

Conington, John, Professor of Latin, ii. 4.

Conwy, Shipley, iii. 129.

---- Colonel Shipley, iii. 130.

Copeland Castle, ii. 364.

Corbet, Lady, of Adderley, iii. 401.

Cork and Orrery, Edmund, 8th Earl of, i. 293.

Costa le Cerda, Vicomte, ii. 115-116, 121.

Cottrell-Dormer, Mr. and Mrs., of Rousham, ii. 150.

Coulson, Colonel, ii. 354.

---- Hon. Mrs., ii. 354.

---- Misses Mary and Arabella, of Blenkinsopp, ii. 176, 222.

Courmayeur, ii. 409, 458.

Courtenay, Lady Agnes, iii. 318.

---- "Sir William" (Nichols Tom), i. 361-365.

Cousin, M. Victor, iii. 146.

Cowburne, Mrs., i. 128, 209.

Coxe, Rev. Henry Octavius, Bodleian Librarian, ii. 157.

Cracroft, Colonel and Mrs., iii. 382.

Cradock, Hon. Mrs. (Harriet Lister), i. 512; ii. 137-138.

Craster, family of, ii. 279.

Crecy, ii. 380.

Creslow Pastures, ii. 220.

Cresswell, Sir Cresswell, ii. 353.

Crichton Castle, ii. 172.

Croyland, iii. 164.

Cuffe, Sir Charles, ii. 58.

Cummings, Mr. and Mrs., iii. 380.

Cushman, Miss Charlotte, iii. 204-207, 386.

D.

Dallas, Mrs., iii. 380.

Dalton Hall, iii. 131.

Dalzell, ii. 359.

Dalzel, Mrs. Allen, iii. 172.

---- Aventina, Mrs., ii. 17-19, 172, 357; iii. 172, 174-176.

Dampierre, ii. 125.

Darley, George, i. 164.

Darling, Mr., of Bamborough, ii, 272.

Dasent, Sir George, i. 67, 448.

Dashwood, Anna Maria Shipley, Mrs., i. 17, 26, 157; iii. 125, 127-128.

---- Bertha, Lady, ii. 466, 477.

---- Sir Edwin, ii. 466.

D'Aubigné, M. Merle, i. 453.

Davenport, Edward, of Capesthorne, ii. 142.

Davidoff, Adèle, Madame, i. 351; ii. 65-67, 76, 115, 416.

Davidson, Susan Jessop, Mrs., of Ridley Hall, ii. 172-177, 266, 272-274; iii. 322-323.

Dawkins, Mrs. Francis, ii. 297; iii. 71-75, 314.

Deimling, Herr Otto, i. 162.

Denfenella, ii. 168.

Denison, Lady Charlotte, iii. 42.

---- Mr. Stephen, ii. 272.

Derby, Edward Smith Stanley, 13th Earl of, iii. 131.

Derwentwater, James Radcliffe, Earl of, ii. 266, 351.

De Selby, Mrs., iii. 71-80.

---- Mrs. Robert, iii. 191.

Des Voeux, Miss Georgiana, ii. 371-372; iii. 139.

Devonshire, Georgiana, wife of William, 5th Duke of, i. 5, 6.

Dickens, Charles, ii. 276.

Dilston, ii. 320.

Dixon, Louisa Simpkinson, Mrs., iii. 397.

Dixon-Browne, Mr. and Mrs., of Unthank, iii. 169.

Dolceacqua, ii. 253.

Dolgorouki, Prince Nicole, iii. 68, 84.

Doncaster, ii. 261.

Doria, Donna Guendolina, ii. 71.

---- Prince, ii. 424.

---- Donna Olimpia, ii. 72.

---- Donna Teresa, ii. 70.

D'Orsay, Count, i. 18, 20, 29, 37; ii. 408.

Dowdeswell, Miss, iii. 76, 82.

Dresden, i. 429.

Duckworth, Robinson, afterwards tutor to Prince Leopold and Canon of Westminster, i. 446, 472; ii. 4, 33.

Dudley, John, Earl, i. 20.

Dumbleton, Miss Harriet, i. 269.

Dumfries, ii. 163.

Dunlop, Harriet, Mrs., iii. 258, 260, 281-282, 288, 291, 292, 298, 304, 306, 317.

Dunottar, ii. 166.

Dunstanborough Castle, ii. 269-270, 364; iii. 35, 36.

Duntrune, ii. 165.

Dupanloup, Monsignor, Bishop of Orleans, iii. 360.

Durham, ii. 262.

Durham, Beatrix, Countess of, ii. 364-366; iii. 35-39.

---- George-Frederick, Earl of, ii. 364-365; ii. 35-36.

Dyrham Park, i. 315.

E.

Eardley, Sir Culling, ii. 298.

Eastbourne, i. 63, 210, 256, 376, 505.

East Hendred, ii. 230.

Eastlake, Elizabeth Rigby, Lady, iii. 154-155, 418.

Eccles Greig, ii. 168.

Egerton, Lady Blanche, iii. 32, 33.

---- Rev. Charles, i. 136.

Elcho, Anne, Lady, ii. 356; iii. 42.

Ellisland, ii. 169.

Ellison, Mr. Cuthbert, i. 50.

---- Mrs., of Sugbrooke, iii. 169.

Elsdon, ii. 345.

Ely, iii. 8.

Erskine, Rev. J., and Mrs., iii. 200.

---- Thomas, of Linlathen, ii. 165, 278.

Escrick, ii. 437.

Eslington, ii. 320, 364.

Este, iii. 229.

Eugene Beauharnais, Prince, i. 20.

Eugenie, the Empress, i. 492; iii. 392.

Evans, Rev. Mr., iii. 3.

Eversley, Viscount, ii. 217.

Evreux, i. 326.

Exeter, Henry Philpotts, Bishop of, ii. 264.

F.

Facchini, Giacinta, "the Saint of St. Peter's," ii. 429-430; iii. 253-254.

Falconnet, Mademoiselle Judith, ii. 59.

Falkirk Tryste, iii. 48.

Farley Hungerford, i. 271-272.

Feilden, Rev. H. Arbuthnot, and Mrs., iii. 78-80.

Feilding, Lord and Lady, i. 340.

Fellowes, Susan Lyon, Mrs., ii. 272, 311.

Ferney Voltaire, i. 453.

Ferrara, ii. 47; iii. 345.

Ferronays, M. de la, ii. 68.

Feuchères, Sophia Dawes, Madame de, iii. 21-23.

Fiano, Duke of, ii. 424; iii. 269, 286.

---- Giulia, Duchess of, ii. 59.

Fielding, Copley, i. 164, 505.

Filiol, Sybil, i. 156.

Fina, S., iii. 343.

Finucane, Miss, iii. 209, 378.

Fisher, Frederick, iii. 67, 414.

FitzClarence, Lady Frederick, iii. 29-30.

Fitz-Gerald, Edward Fox, i. 29.

---- Jane Paul, Mrs. Edward, i. 29; iii. 267, 269, 271, 272.

---- Pamela, wife of Lord Edward, i. 29.

Fitzherbert, Mrs., iii. 323.

Fitzmaurice, Mrs., iii. 225.

Fletcher, Miss, of Saltoun, ii. 355; iii. 40, 42, 43.

---- Lady Charlotte, ii. 356; iii. 43-45.

Flodden Field, ii. 281.

Florence, ii. 84; iii. 103, 315.

Florence, Henry, iii. 363.

Fontainebleau, i. 451.

Fontaines, iii. 183.

Fontarabia, ii. 493.

Fontenay, iii. 385.

Ford Castle, ii. 280-282, 360-363; iii. 323-326.

Foster, Dr., Bishop of Kilmore, and Mrs., ii. 233-234.

---- Miss, ii. 234-239.

Fotheringham, Mrs., of Fotheringham, ii. 165.

Francesca Romana, S., iii. 224-225.

Francesco II., King of Naples, iii. 96-97, 85.

Franklin, Lady, iii. 2.

Fray, Miss, i. 268.

Frederick, Crown Prince of Prussia, afterwards Emperor of Germany, ii. 374.

---- the Great, ii. 148.

Fribourg, in Switzerland, ii. 112.

Fritwell Manor, ii. 151.

Fry, Elizabeth, Mrs., i. 229; ii. 437.

Fullerton, Lady Georgiana, ii. 400, 403, 444.

G.

Gabet, M., ii. 421.

Gabriac, Marquis de, ii. 115.

---- Marquise de, ii. 67.

Gaebler, M. Bernard, i. 160.

Galicano, the Hermitage of, ii. 98.

Galway, Rev. Father, ii. 398-404, 427; iii. 262, 286.

Garden, Miss Henrietta, i. 108; iii. 192, 213, 220.

Gaskell, Mrs., the authoress, ii. 224; iii. 117.

Gasperoni, the robber chieftain, ii. 54.

Gaussen, M., i. 453.

Gayford, Mrs., i. 53, 369.

Gemmi, adventure on the, i. 462.

Geneva, i. 452; ii. 378.

George III., King of England, ii. 434-436.

George IV., King of England, iii. 14, 15, 176, 324.

Ghizza, Ancilla, iii. 234.

Giacinta, the "Saint of St. Peter's," ii. 429-430; iii. 253-254.

Gibside, ii. 180.

Gibson, John, the sculptor, iii. 76-78.

Gidman, John, i. 131;