Chapter 31

Towards the latter part of the last century there lived at an old manorial farm in Brittany a female farmer named Bergeret. Her ancestors had owned the farm, and had cultivated their own land for hundreds of years, and Madame Bergeret herself was well known and highly respected through all the neighbouring country, charitable to her poorer neighbours, frank, kind, and unfailingly hospitable to those in her own rank of life. She lived bounteously, kept an open house, and spent in beneficence and hospitality the ample income which her lands brought her.One day she was surprised by a visit from her next neighbour, a man named Girard, in her own class of life, whose family had always been known to her own, and who had possessed the neighbouring farm. He told her that he felt she would be shocked to hear that he had long been acting a part in making himself appear much better off than he was; that he had lost a great deal of money in speculation; that all was on the eve of being divulged; that if he could manage to keeps things going till after the next harvest, he might tide over his misfortunes, but that otherwise he must be totally ruined, lose everything he had, and bring his wife and children to destitution; and by the recollection of their old neighbourhood and long intimacy he adjured Madame Bergeret to help him. Madame Bergeret was very sorry—very sorry indeed, but she told him that it was impossible; and it really was. She lived amply up to her income, she had laid nothing by: she was well off, but all she had came from her lands; her income depended upon her harvest; she really had nothing to give to her poor neighbour, and she told him so—told him so with a very heavy heart, and he went away terribly crestfallen and miserable.When Girard was gone, Madame Bergeret looked round her room, and she saw there a collection of fine old gold plate, such as often forms the source of pride to a Breton yeoman of old family, and descends like a patent of nobility from one generation to another, greatly reverenced and guarded. Madame Bergeret looked at her plate, and she said to herself, "If this was sold, it would produce a very large sum; and ought I, for the sake of mere family pride, to allow an oldand honourable family to go to destitution?" And she called her neighbour back, and she gave Girard all her gold plate. The sum for which he was able to sell it helped him through till after the harvest; soon afterwards he found an opportunity of disposing of his Breton lands to very great advantage, and removed to another part of the country. He thanked Madame Bergeret, but he did not seem to realise that she had made any great sacrifice in his behalf; and she, resting satisfied in having done what she believed to be right, expected no more.Some years afterwards, Madame Bergeret, being an old woman, placed her Breton lands in the hands of an agent, and removed with her two children to Paris. The great French Revolution occurred while she was there, and the Reign of Terror came on, and Madame Bergeret, who belonged to a Royalist family of loyal Brittany, was arrested: she was thrown into the prison of La Force, and she was condemned to death.The Madame Bergeret I knew in another generation recollected being with her little brother in a room on the Rue St Honoré on the day on which a hundred and twenty persons were to suffer in the Place Louis XV. She saw them pass down the street to execution in twenty-two tumbrils; but when the last tumbril came beneath the window, the friends who were with her in the room drew down the blinds; not, however, before she had recognised her own mother in that tumbril, with all her hair cut off, that the head might come off more easily.All the way to the place of execution, MadameBergeret consoled and encouraged her companions, and she assented to their petition that she should suffer last, that she would see them through the dread portal before her. Therefore, when her turn at length came, the ground around the scaffold was one sea of blood, for a hundred and nineteen persons had perished that day. Thus, on descending the steps of the cart, Madame Bergeret slipped and stumbled. This arrested the attention of the deputy who was set to watch the executions. He started, and then rushed forward saying, "This woman has no business here. I know her very well; she is a most honest citoyenne, or, if she is not, I know quite well how to make her so: this woman is not one to be guillotined." It was Girard.Now Madame Bergeret was quite prepared for death, but the sudden revulsion of her deliverance overcame her and she fainted. Girard carried her away in his arms, and when she came to herself she was in bed in a house in a quiet back-street of Paris, and he was watching over her. He had removed to Lyons, and, with the sudden changes of the time, had risen to be deputy, and being set to watch the executions, had recognised the woman who had saved him. By the help of Girard, and after many hairbreadth escapes, Madame Bergeret reached the coast, and eventually arrived in England. She then made her way to the only person she knew, a lady who had once spent some time in her Breton village, a Mrs. Adamson. Her daughter played with and was brought up with the little Miss Adamson. When Miss Adamson married Sir Godfrey Webster of Battle Abbey, Mademoiselle Bergeret (her mother being dead) went with her and lived atBattle as a sort of companion to Lady Webster and nursery-governess to her boys. For fifty years she never received any salary, and having, through the changes of things in France, inherited something of her mother's Breton property, she twice sacrificed her little all to pay the debts of the Webster family. Therefore it was that, in the close of life, Lady Webster felt that her sons might provide for themselves, but that, having very little to bequeath, the one person she could not leave destitute was "her dear and faithful companion and friend, Madame Bergeret."Five months before her death, Lady Webster was very full of the terrible deaths which had lately occurred from railway accidents, and, on leaving home, she said to Madame Bergeret, "Here is this paper, and if I should be killed by an accident or not live to come home, you may read it; but at any rate keep it for me, and perhaps, if I come back, some day I may want it again." Lady Webster came back well and did not ask for the paper, and when she died, it was so sudden, a few minutes after talking quite cheerfully to Madame Bergeret, that in the shock she remembered nothing about it, and it was only long afterwards, when they were making a great fuss about there being no will, that she suddenly thought of the paper entrusted to her, and, when it was read, found Lady Webster had left her all she possessed.Madame Bergeret dying herself about a year afterwards, left everything back to the Webster family. She was a quiet primitive old woman, who used to sit in the background at work in Lady Webster's sitting-room.

Towards the latter part of the last century there lived at an old manorial farm in Brittany a female farmer named Bergeret. Her ancestors had owned the farm, and had cultivated their own land for hundreds of years, and Madame Bergeret herself was well known and highly respected through all the neighbouring country, charitable to her poorer neighbours, frank, kind, and unfailingly hospitable to those in her own rank of life. She lived bounteously, kept an open house, and spent in beneficence and hospitality the ample income which her lands brought her.

One day she was surprised by a visit from her next neighbour, a man named Girard, in her own class of life, whose family had always been known to her own, and who had possessed the neighbouring farm. He told her that he felt she would be shocked to hear that he had long been acting a part in making himself appear much better off than he was; that he had lost a great deal of money in speculation; that all was on the eve of being divulged; that if he could manage to keeps things going till after the next harvest, he might tide over his misfortunes, but that otherwise he must be totally ruined, lose everything he had, and bring his wife and children to destitution; and by the recollection of their old neighbourhood and long intimacy he adjured Madame Bergeret to help him. Madame Bergeret was very sorry—very sorry indeed, but she told him that it was impossible; and it really was. She lived amply up to her income, she had laid nothing by: she was well off, but all she had came from her lands; her income depended upon her harvest; she really had nothing to give to her poor neighbour, and she told him so—told him so with a very heavy heart, and he went away terribly crestfallen and miserable.

When Girard was gone, Madame Bergeret looked round her room, and she saw there a collection of fine old gold plate, such as often forms the source of pride to a Breton yeoman of old family, and descends like a patent of nobility from one generation to another, greatly reverenced and guarded. Madame Bergeret looked at her plate, and she said to herself, "If this was sold, it would produce a very large sum; and ought I, for the sake of mere family pride, to allow an oldand honourable family to go to destitution?" And she called her neighbour back, and she gave Girard all her gold plate. The sum for which he was able to sell it helped him through till after the harvest; soon afterwards he found an opportunity of disposing of his Breton lands to very great advantage, and removed to another part of the country. He thanked Madame Bergeret, but he did not seem to realise that she had made any great sacrifice in his behalf; and she, resting satisfied in having done what she believed to be right, expected no more.

Some years afterwards, Madame Bergeret, being an old woman, placed her Breton lands in the hands of an agent, and removed with her two children to Paris. The great French Revolution occurred while she was there, and the Reign of Terror came on, and Madame Bergeret, who belonged to a Royalist family of loyal Brittany, was arrested: she was thrown into the prison of La Force, and she was condemned to death.

The Madame Bergeret I knew in another generation recollected being with her little brother in a room on the Rue St Honoré on the day on which a hundred and twenty persons were to suffer in the Place Louis XV. She saw them pass down the street to execution in twenty-two tumbrils; but when the last tumbril came beneath the window, the friends who were with her in the room drew down the blinds; not, however, before she had recognised her own mother in that tumbril, with all her hair cut off, that the head might come off more easily.

All the way to the place of execution, MadameBergeret consoled and encouraged her companions, and she assented to their petition that she should suffer last, that she would see them through the dread portal before her. Therefore, when her turn at length came, the ground around the scaffold was one sea of blood, for a hundred and nineteen persons had perished that day. Thus, on descending the steps of the cart, Madame Bergeret slipped and stumbled. This arrested the attention of the deputy who was set to watch the executions. He started, and then rushed forward saying, "This woman has no business here. I know her very well; she is a most honest citoyenne, or, if she is not, I know quite well how to make her so: this woman is not one to be guillotined." It was Girard.

Now Madame Bergeret was quite prepared for death, but the sudden revulsion of her deliverance overcame her and she fainted. Girard carried her away in his arms, and when she came to herself she was in bed in a house in a quiet back-street of Paris, and he was watching over her. He had removed to Lyons, and, with the sudden changes of the time, had risen to be deputy, and being set to watch the executions, had recognised the woman who had saved him. By the help of Girard, and after many hairbreadth escapes, Madame Bergeret reached the coast, and eventually arrived in England. She then made her way to the only person she knew, a lady who had once spent some time in her Breton village, a Mrs. Adamson. Her daughter played with and was brought up with the little Miss Adamson. When Miss Adamson married Sir Godfrey Webster of Battle Abbey, Mademoiselle Bergeret (her mother being dead) went with her and lived atBattle as a sort of companion to Lady Webster and nursery-governess to her boys. For fifty years she never received any salary, and having, through the changes of things in France, inherited something of her mother's Breton property, she twice sacrificed her little all to pay the debts of the Webster family. Therefore it was that, in the close of life, Lady Webster felt that her sons might provide for themselves, but that, having very little to bequeath, the one person she could not leave destitute was "her dear and faithful companion and friend, Madame Bergeret."

Five months before her death, Lady Webster was very full of the terrible deaths which had lately occurred from railway accidents, and, on leaving home, she said to Madame Bergeret, "Here is this paper, and if I should be killed by an accident or not live to come home, you may read it; but at any rate keep it for me, and perhaps, if I come back, some day I may want it again." Lady Webster came back well and did not ask for the paper, and when she died, it was so sudden, a few minutes after talking quite cheerfully to Madame Bergeret, that in the shock she remembered nothing about it, and it was only long afterwards, when they were making a great fuss about there being no will, that she suddenly thought of the paper entrusted to her, and, when it was read, found Lady Webster had left her all she possessed.

Madame Bergeret dying herself about a year afterwards, left everything back to the Webster family. She was a quiet primitive old woman, who used to sit in the background at work in Lady Webster's sitting-room.

After my return home in the autumn of 1867, my mother was terribly ill, so that our journey abroad was a very anxious one to look forward to. I tried, however, to face it quite cheerily. I have read in an American novel somewhere, "It is no use to pack up any worries to take with you; you can always pick up plenty on the way;" and I have always found it true.

ToMISSWRIGHTandJOURNAL."Nice, Nov. 17, 1867.—My dear Aunt Sophy will be delighted to see this date. So far all our troubles and anxieties are past, and the sweet Mother certainly not the worse, perhaps rather better for all her fatigues. It is an extraordinary case, to be one day lying in a sort of vision on the portals of another world, the next up and travelling.FONTAINES.FONTAINES.[354]"When we reached Paris she was terribly exhausted, then slept for thirty-six hours like a child, almost without waking. At the Embassy we were urged to go on to Rome, all quiet and likely to subside into a dead calm; but so much snow had fallen on Mont Cenis, that in Mother's weak state we could not risk that passage, and were obliged to decide upon coming round by the coast. On Monday we reached Dijon, where twenty-four hours' sleep again revived the Mother. It was fiercely cold, but Tuesday brightened into a glorious winter's day, and I had a most enchanting walk through sunshine and bracing air to Fontaines. It is picturesque French country, a winding roadwith golden vines and old stone crosses, and a distance of oddly-shaped purple hills. Fontaines itself is a large village, full of mouldering mediæval fragments, stretching up a hillside, which becomes steeper towards the top, and is crowned by a fine old church, a lawn with groups of old walnut-trees, and the remains of the château where St. Bernard was born. Over the entrance is a statue of him, and within, the room of his birth is preserved as a chapel. The view from the churchyard is lovely, and the graves are markedby ancient stone crosses and bordered with flowers. Within are old tombs and inscriptions—'Ce git la très haute et très puissante dame,' &c."We came on to Arles by the quick night-train, and stayed there as usual two days and a half—days of glaring white sirocco and no colour, and at Arles we found ourselves at once in Southern heat, panting, without fires and with windows wide open."

ToMISSWRIGHTandJOURNAL.

"Nice, Nov. 17, 1867.—My dear Aunt Sophy will be delighted to see this date. So far all our troubles and anxieties are past, and the sweet Mother certainly not the worse, perhaps rather better for all her fatigues. It is an extraordinary case, to be one day lying in a sort of vision on the portals of another world, the next up and travelling.

FONTAINES.FONTAINES.[354]

"When we reached Paris she was terribly exhausted, then slept for thirty-six hours like a child, almost without waking. At the Embassy we were urged to go on to Rome, all quiet and likely to subside into a dead calm; but so much snow had fallen on Mont Cenis, that in Mother's weak state we could not risk that passage, and were obliged to decide upon coming round by the coast. On Monday we reached Dijon, where twenty-four hours' sleep again revived the Mother. It was fiercely cold, but Tuesday brightened into a glorious winter's day, and I had a most enchanting walk through sunshine and bracing air to Fontaines. It is picturesque French country, a winding roadwith golden vines and old stone crosses, and a distance of oddly-shaped purple hills. Fontaines itself is a large village, full of mouldering mediæval fragments, stretching up a hillside, which becomes steeper towards the top, and is crowned by a fine old church, a lawn with groups of old walnut-trees, and the remains of the château where St. Bernard was born. Over the entrance is a statue of him, and within, the room of his birth is preserved as a chapel. The view from the churchyard is lovely, and the graves are markedby ancient stone crosses and bordered with flowers. Within are old tombs and inscriptions—'Ce git la très haute et très puissante dame,' &c.

"We came on to Arles by the quick night-train, and stayed there as usual two days and a half—days of glaring white sirocco and no colour, and at Arles we found ourselves at once in Southern heat, panting, without fires and with windows wide open."

ARC DE S. CESAIRE, ALISCAMPS, ARLES.ARC DE S. CESAIRE, ALISCAMPS, ARLES.[355]

"Pisa, Dec. 1.—We left Nice on the 21st, and slept at Mentone, quite spoilt by building and by cutting downtrees. I saw many friends, especially the Comtesse d'Adhemar, who flung her arms round me and kissed me on both cheeks. We spent the middle of the next day at S. Remo and slept at Oneglia. The precipices are truly appalling. I have visions still of the early morning drive from Oneglia along dewy hillsides and amongst hoary olives, and through the narrow gaily painted streets of the little fishing-towns, where the arches meet overhead and the wares set out before the shop-doors brush the carriage as it passes by.

"Pisa, Dec. 1.—We left Nice on the 21st, and slept at Mentone, quite spoilt by building and by cutting downtrees. I saw many friends, especially the Comtesse d'Adhemar, who flung her arms round me and kissed me on both cheeks. We spent the middle of the next day at S. Remo and slept at Oneglia. The precipices are truly appalling. I have visions still of the early morning drive from Oneglia along dewy hillsides and amongst hoary olives, and through the narrow gaily painted streets of the little fishing-towns, where the arches meet overhead and the wares set out before the shop-doors brush the carriage as it passes by.

AT SAVONA.AT SAVONA.[356]

"The second day, at Loiano, I was left behind. Iwent just outside the hotel to draw, begging my mother and Lea to pick me up as they went by. The carriage passed close by me and they did not see me. At first I did not hurry myself, thinking, when they did not find me, that they would stop for me a little farther on; but seeing the carriage go on and on, I ran after it as hard as I could, shouting at the pitch of my voice; but it never stopped, and I quite lost sight of it in the narrow streets of one of the fishing-villages before reaching Finale. At Finale I was in absolute despair at their not stopping, which seemed inexplicable, and I pursued mile after mile, footsore and weary, through the grand mountain coves in that part of the Riviera and along the desolate shore to Noli, where, just as night closed in, I was taken up by some people driving in a little carriage, on the box of which, in a bitter cold wind, I was carried to Savona, where I arrived just as our heavy carriage with its inmates was driving into the hotel. It was one of the odd instances of my dear mother's insouciance, of her 'happy-go-lucky' nature: 'they had not seen me, they had not looked back; no, they supposed I should get on somehow; they knew I always fell on my legs.' And I was perfectly conscious that if I had not appeared for days, my mother would have said just the same. We spent a pleasant Sunday at Savona, the views most beautiful of the wonderfully picturesque tower, calm bay of sapphire water, and delicate mountain distance."The landlord of the Croce di Malta at Genoa engaged avetturinoto take us to La Spezia. The first day, it was late when we left Sta. Margherita, where we stayed for luncheon. The driver lighted his lampsat Chiavari. Soon both my companions fell asleep. I sat up watching the foam of the sea at the bottom of the deep black precipices without parapets as long as I could see it through the gloom: then it became quite dark. Suddenly there was a frightful bolt of the horses, scream after scream from the driver, an awful crash, and we were hurled violently over and over into the black darkness. A succession of shrieks from Lea showed me that she was alive, but I thought at first my mother must be killed, for there was no sound from her. Soon the great troop of navvies came up, whose sudden appearance from the mouth of a tunnel, each with a long iron torch in his hand, had made the horses bolt. One of them let down his torch into the mired and broken carriage as it lay bottom upwards. 'Povera, poveretta,' he exclaimed, as he saw Lea sitting pouring with blood amongst the broken glass of the five great windows of the carriage. Then Mother's voice from the depth of the hood assured us that she was not hurt, only buried under the cushions and bags, and she had courage to remain perfectly motionless, while sheet after sheet of broken glass was taken from off her (she would have been cut to pieces if she had moved) and thrown out at the top of the carriage. Then there was a great consultation as tohowwe were to be got out, which ended in the carriage being bodily lifted and part of the top taken off, making an opening through which first Lea was dragged and afterwards the Mother. Then my mother, who had not walked at all for many weeks, was compelled to walk more than a mile to Sestri, in pitch darkness and pouring rain, dragged by a navvy on one side and me on theother. Another navvy supported Lea, who was in a fainting state, and others carried torches. We excited much pity when we arrived at the little inn at Sestri, and the people were most hospitable and kind. I had always especially wished to draw a particular view of a gaily painted church tower and some grand aloes on the road near Sestri, and it was curious to be enabled to do so the next day by our forcible detention there for want of a carriage.

"The second day, at Loiano, I was left behind. Iwent just outside the hotel to draw, begging my mother and Lea to pick me up as they went by. The carriage passed close by me and they did not see me. At first I did not hurry myself, thinking, when they did not find me, that they would stop for me a little farther on; but seeing the carriage go on and on, I ran after it as hard as I could, shouting at the pitch of my voice; but it never stopped, and I quite lost sight of it in the narrow streets of one of the fishing-villages before reaching Finale. At Finale I was in absolute despair at their not stopping, which seemed inexplicable, and I pursued mile after mile, footsore and weary, through the grand mountain coves in that part of the Riviera and along the desolate shore to Noli, where, just as night closed in, I was taken up by some people driving in a little carriage, on the box of which, in a bitter cold wind, I was carried to Savona, where I arrived just as our heavy carriage with its inmates was driving into the hotel. It was one of the odd instances of my dear mother's insouciance, of her 'happy-go-lucky' nature: 'they had not seen me, they had not looked back; no, they supposed I should get on somehow; they knew I always fell on my legs.' And I was perfectly conscious that if I had not appeared for days, my mother would have said just the same. We spent a pleasant Sunday at Savona, the views most beautiful of the wonderfully picturesque tower, calm bay of sapphire water, and delicate mountain distance.

"The landlord of the Croce di Malta at Genoa engaged avetturinoto take us to La Spezia. The first day, it was late when we left Sta. Margherita, where we stayed for luncheon. The driver lighted his lampsat Chiavari. Soon both my companions fell asleep. I sat up watching the foam of the sea at the bottom of the deep black precipices without parapets as long as I could see it through the gloom: then it became quite dark. Suddenly there was a frightful bolt of the horses, scream after scream from the driver, an awful crash, and we were hurled violently over and over into the black darkness. A succession of shrieks from Lea showed me that she was alive, but I thought at first my mother must be killed, for there was no sound from her. Soon the great troop of navvies came up, whose sudden appearance from the mouth of a tunnel, each with a long iron torch in his hand, had made the horses bolt. One of them let down his torch into the mired and broken carriage as it lay bottom upwards. 'Povera, poveretta,' he exclaimed, as he saw Lea sitting pouring with blood amongst the broken glass of the five great windows of the carriage. Then Mother's voice from the depth of the hood assured us that she was not hurt, only buried under the cushions and bags, and she had courage to remain perfectly motionless, while sheet after sheet of broken glass was taken from off her (she would have been cut to pieces if she had moved) and thrown out at the top of the carriage. Then there was a great consultation as tohowwe were to be got out, which ended in the carriage being bodily lifted and part of the top taken off, making an opening through which first Lea was dragged and afterwards the Mother. Then my mother, who had not walked at all for many weeks, was compelled to walk more than a mile to Sestri, in pitch darkness and pouring rain, dragged by a navvy on one side and me on theother. Another navvy supported Lea, who was in a fainting state, and others carried torches. We excited much pity when we arrived at the little inn at Sestri, and the people were most hospitable and kind. I had always especially wished to draw a particular view of a gaily painted church tower and some grand aloes on the road near Sestri, and it was curious to be enabled to do so the next day by our forcible detention there for want of a carriage.

SESTRI.SESTRI.[357]

"On the 29th we crossed once more the grand pass of Bracco, with its glorious scenery of billowy mountains ending in the delicate peaks of Carrara; and webaited at a wretched village where Mother was able to walk in the sunny road. Yesterday we came here by the exquisite railway under Massa Ducale, and were rapturously welcomed by Victoire[358]and her daughter.""Palazzo Parisani, Rome, Dec. 10.—We had a wearisome journey here on the 3rd, the train not attempting to keep any particular time, and stopping more than an hour at Orbetello for the 'discorso' of the guard and engine-driver,[359]and at other stations in proportion. However, Mother quite revived when the great masses of the aqueducts began to show in the moonlight. They had given up expecting us in the Palazzo, where my sister has lent us her apartments, and it was long before we could get any one to open the door."It has been bitterly cold ever since we arrived and the air filled with snow. The first acquaintance I saw was the Pope! He was at the Trinità de' Monte, and I waited to see him come down the steps and receive his blessing on our first Roman morning. He looked dreadfully weak, and Monsignor Talbot seemed to be holding him tight up lest he should fall. The Neapolitan royal family I have already seen, always in their deep mourning.[360]"The Pincio is still surrounded with earthworks, and the barricades remain outside the gates: a greatopen moat yawns in front of the door of the English Church. The barrack near St. Peter's is a hideous ruin. The accounts of the battle of Mentana are awful: when the Pontificals had expended all their ammunition, they rushed upon the Garibaldians and tore them with their teeth."Terrible misery has been left by the cholera, and the streets are far more full of beggars than ever. The number of deaths has been frightful—Princess Colonna and her daughters; old Marchese Serlupi; Müller the painter and his child; Mrs. Foljambe's old maid of thirty years; Mrs. Ramsay's donna and the man who made tea at her parties, are amongst those we have known. The first day we were out, Lea and I saw a woman in deep mourning, who was evidently begging, look wistfully at us, and had some difficulty in recognising Angela, our donna of 1863. Her husband, handsome Antonio the fisherman, turned black of the cholera in the Pescheria, and died in a few hours, and her three children have been ill ever since."Mrs. Shakspeare Wood has been to see us, and described the summer which she has spent here—six thousand deaths in Rome between May and November, sixty in the Forum of Trajan, thirty in the Purificazione alone. The Government wisely forbade any funeral processions, and did not allow the bells to be tolled, and the dead were taken away at night. Then came the war. The gates were closed, and an edict published bidding all the citizens, when they heard 'cinque colpi di cannóne, d'andare subito a casa.' The Woods laid in quantities of flour, and spent £5 incheese, only remembering afterwards that, having forgotten to lay in any fuel, they could not have baked their bread.""Dec. 13.—Yesterday I went to Mrs. Robert De Selby.[361]She described the excitement of the battles. In the thick of it all she got a safe-conduct and drove out to Mentana to be near her husband in case he was wounded. She also drove several times to the army with provisions and cordials. If they tried to stop her, she said she was an officer's wife taking him his dinner, and they let her pass. One of the officers said afterwards to her mother, 'La sua figlia vale un altro dragone.'"She told me Lady Anne S. Giorgio (her mother),[362]was living in the Mercede, and I went there at once. She was overjoyed to see me, and embraced me with the utmost affection. She is also enchanted to be near the Mother, her 'saint in a Protestant niche.' She is come here because 'all the old sinners in Florence' disapproved of her revolutionary tendencies. Lady Anne remembered my father's great intimacy with Mezzofanti. She said my father had once a servant who came from an obscure part of Hungary where they spoke a very peculiar dialect. One day, going to Mezzofanti, he took his servant with him. The Cardinal asked the man where he came from, and, on his telling him, addressed him in the dialect of his native place. The man screamed violently, and, making for the door, tried to escape: he took Mezzofanti for a wizard."Lady Anne recollected my father's extreme enjoyment of a scene of this kind. There was a Dr. Taylor who used to worship the heathen gods—Mars and Mercury, and the rest. One day at Oxford, in the presence of my father and of one of the professors, he took his little silver images of the gods out of his pocket and began to pray to them and burn incense. The professor, intensely shocked, tried to interfere, but my father started up—'Howcanyou be so foolish?dobe quiet: don't you see you're interrupting the comedy?' The same Dr. Taylor was afterwards arrested for sacrificing a bullock to Neptune in a back-parlour in London!""44 Piazza di Spagna, Dec. 29.—We moved here on the 20th to a delightfully comfortable apartment, which is a perfect sun-trap. Most truly luxurious indeed does Rome seem after Cannes—food, house, carriages, all so good and reasonable. I actually gave a party before we left my sister's apartment, lighting up those fine rooms, and issuing the invitations in my own name, in order that Mother might not feel obliged to appear unless quite equal to it at the moment. Three days after I had another party for children—tea and high romps afterwards in the long drawing-room."On the 21st I went with the Erskines, Mrs. Ramsay, and Miss Garden, by rail to Monte Rotondo. The quantity of soldiers at the station and all along the road quite allayed any fears of brigands which had been entertained regarding the mile and a half between the village and the railway. The situation proved quite beautiful—the old houses crowned by thePiombino castle, rising from vineyards and gardens, backed by the purple peak of Monte Gennaro. Beyond, in the hollow, is the convent where Garibaldi was encamped, and farther still the battlefield of Mentana."On the 23rd there was a magnificent reception at the Spanish Embassy. Every one went to salute the new ambassador, Don Alessandro del Castro, and the whole immense suite of rooms thrown open had a glorious effect. There was an abundance of cardinals, and the Roman princesses all arrived in their diamonds. The Borgheses came in as a family procession, headed by Princess Borghese in blue velvet and diamonds. The young English Princess Teano looked lovely in blue velvet and gold brocade. On Christmas Day I went to St Peter's for the coming in of the Pope, and stayed long enough to see Francis II. arrive with his suite. In the afternoon I took Lea to the Ara Cœli and Sta. Maria Maggiore. At the Ara Cœli great confusion prevails and much enthusiasm on account of a new miracle. When people were ill, upon their paying a scudo for the carriage, the Santo Bambino was brought by two of the monks, and left upon the sick-bed, to be fetched away some hours after in the same way. A sacrilegious lady determined to take advantage of this to steal the Bambino; so she pretended her child was ill and paid her scudo; but as soon as ever the monks were gone, she had a false Bambino, which she had caused to be prepared, dressed up in the clothes of the real one, and when the monks came back they took away the false Bambino without discovering the fraud, and carried it to the place of honour in the Church of Ara Cœli."That night the convent awoke to fearful alarm, every bell rang at the same moment, awful sounds were heard at the doors; the trembling brotherhood hastened to the church, but loud and fast the knocks continued on the very door of the sanctuary ('bussava, bussava, bussava'). At last they summoned courage to approach the entrance with lights, and behold, a little tiny pink child's foot, which was poked in under the door; and they opened the door wide, and there without, on the platform at the head of the steps, stood, in the wind and the rain, quite naked, the real Bambino of Ara Cœli. So then the real child was restored to its place, and the lady, confounded and disgraced, was bidden to take the false child home again."Our donna, Louisa, was in ecstasies when she told us this story—'Oh com' è graziosa, oh com' è graziosa questa storia,'—and she never can understand why we do not send for the Bambino to cure Mother of all her ailments, though, in consequence of the theft, it is now never left alone in a house, but is taken away by the same monks who bring it. Lea was imprudent enough to say she did not believe the Bambino would ever doherany good; but when Louisa, looking at her with wondering eyes, asked why, said weakly, 'Because I have such a bad heart,' in which Louisa quite acquiesced as a reason."It had been a sad shadow hitherto over all this winter that my sweetest Mother had been so ill. At Parisani I had many sad days and nights too. She suffered almost constantly from pain in the back, and moaned in a way which went to my very heart....Twice only in the fortnight was Mother able to get out to the Forum and walk in the sun from the Coliseum to the Capitol, and she felt the cold most terribly, and certainly the Palazzo was very cold."At first, when we came to this house, Mother was better, and she was delighted with these rooms, which fulfilled a presentiment she had told me of before we left home, that this winter she should have the pleasantest apartment she had ever had yet. But on the 21st she was chilled when driving with Mrs. Hall to Torre Quinto, and that evening quite lost her power of articulation. It only lasted about an hour.... She was conscious of it afterwards, and said, 'It was so odd, I was not able to speak.' Some days after, though able to articulate, she was unable to find the words she needed, calling the commonest things by their wrong names, and this was the more alarming as more likely to be continuous. On Thursday she was well enough to drive with me to the Aqua Acetosa, and walk there in the sun on the muddy Tiber bank, but that evening she became worse, and since then has scarcely been out of bed.""Dec. 30.—On Saturday I was constantly restless, with a sense of fire near me, but could discover nothing burning in the apartment. I had such a strong presentiment of fire that I refused to go out all day. When Lea came in with my tea at 8P.M., I told her what an extraordinary noise I continually heard—a sort of rushing over the ceiling, which was of strained canvas—but she thought nothing of it. Soon after she was gone, a shower of sparks burst into the room andlarge pieces of burning wood forced their way through a hole in the ceiling. Shouting to Lea, I rushed up to the next floor, and rang violently and continuously at the bell, shouting 'Fuoco, fuoco;' but the owners of the apartment were gone to bed and would not get up; so, without losing time, I flew downstairs, roused the porter, sent him off to fetch Ferdinando Manetti, who was responsible for our apartment, and then for thepompieri. Meantime the servants of Miss Robertson, who lived below us, had come to our help, and assisted in keeping the fire under with sponges of water, while Lea and I rushed about securing money, valuables, drawings, &c., and then, dragging out our great boxes, began rapidly to fill them. Mother was greatly astonished at seeing us moving in and out with great piles of things in our arms, but did not realise at once what had happened. I had just arranged for her being wrapped up in blankets and carried through the streets to Palazzo Parisani, when thepompieriarrived. From that time there was no real danger. They tore up the bricks of the floor above us, and poured water through upon the charred and burning beams, and a cascade of black water and hot bricks tumbled through together into our drawing-room."ToMISSWRIGHT."Jan. 1.—Alas! I can give but a poor account of her who occupies all my real thoughts and interests. My sweetest Mother is still very, very feeble, and quite touchingly helpless. She varies like a thermometer with the weather, and if it is fine, is wellenough to see Mrs. Hall and one or two friends, but she is seldom able to be dressed before twelve o'clock, and often has to lie down again before four. I seldom like to be away from her long, and never by day or night feel really free from anxiety."JOURNAL."Jan. 2, 1868.—I have been out twice in the evening—to Mrs. Ramsay to meet M. de Soveral, the ex-minister of Portugal, and his wife and daughter, and to Mrs. Hall to meet the Erskines. Mrs. Hall described a sermon she had lately heard at the Coliseum, the whole object of which was the glorification of Mary Queen of Scots. It was most painful, she said, describing how Elizabeth, who turned only to her Bible, died a prey to indescribable torments of mind, while Mary, clinging to her crucifix, died religiously and devoutly."The Marchesa Serlupi has given a fearful account of the Albano tragedy. The old Marchese had come to them greatly worn out with his labours in attendance on the Pope during the canonisation,[363]and he was seized with cholera almost at once. When the doctor came, his hair was standing on end with horror. He said he had not sat down for eighteen hours, hurrying from one to another. He said the old Marchese had the cholera, and it was no use doing anything for him, he would be dead in a few hours. The Marchesa thought he had gone mad with fright, which in fact he had. When he was gone, she gave remedies of her own to the old man, which subdued the cholera at the time,but he sank afterwards from exhaustion. During that time the dead all around them were being carried out: the Appian Way was quite choked up by those who were in flight, and people were dying among the tombs all along the wayside."As soon as the old Marchese was dead, the Serlupi family determined to fly. As the Marchesa had been constantly nursing the old man, she would not take her child with her, and sent him on first in another carriage. When they got half way, a man came up to them saying that the person who was with the child in the other carriage was in the agonies of death, and they had to take the child into their own carriage. At the half-way house they stopped to inquire for a party of friends who had preceded them: five had fled in the carriage, three were already dead! There was only one remedy which was never known to fail: it was discovered by a Capuchin monk, and is given in wine. It is not known what the medicine is, and its effect entirely depends upon the exact proportions being given. The Marchesa used to send dozens of wine to the Capuchin, and then give it away impregnated with the medicine to the poor people in Rome."To-day my darling has been rather better, and was able to drive for an hour on the Pincio. Yesterday evening she prayed aloud for herself most touchingly before both me and Lea, that God would look upon her infirmities, that He would forgive her weakness, and supply the insufficiency of her prayers. Her sweet pleading voice, tremulous with weakness, went to our hearts, and her trembling upturned look was inexpressibly affecting.""Feb. 4.—When we first came here, we were much attracted by Francesca Bengivenga, a pleasant cordial woman who lets the apartment above us, and who lived in a corner of it with her nice respectable old mother. Lea went up to see them, and gave quite a pretty description of the old woman sitting quietly in her room at needlework, while the daughter bustled about."On January 9 we were startled by seeing a procession carrying the Last Sacraments up our staircase, and on inquiry heard that it was to a very old woman who was dying at the top of the house. Late in the evening it occurred to Lea that the sick person at the top of the house might perhaps be in want, and she went up to Francesca to inquire if she could be of any use. Then, for the first time, we heard that it had been Francesca's mother who had been ill, and that she had died an hour after the priests had been. Francesca herself was in most terrible anguish of grief, but obliged to control herself, because only a few days before she had let her apartment, and did not venture to tell her lodgers what had occurred in the house. So whenever the bell rang, she had to dry her tears by an effort, and appear as if nothing had happened. We urged her to reveal the truth, which at length she did with a great burst of sobs, and the tenants took it well. The next day at four o'clock the old woman was carried away, and on the following morning I pleased Francesca by attending at themessa cantatain S. Andrea delle Fratte."On January 10 Charlotte and Gina Leycester arrived. By way of showing civilities to acquaintance,I have had several excursions to the different hills, explaining the churches and vineyards with the sights they contain. On the Aventine I had a very large—too large a party. With the Erskines I went to San Salvatore in Lauro, where the old convent is partially turned into a barrack, and was filled with Papal Zouaves, who spoke a most unintelligible jargon which turned out to be High Dutch. A very civil little officer, however, took us into a grand old chapel opening out of the cloisters, but now occupied as a soldiers' dormitory, and filled with rows of beds, while groups of soldiers were sitting on the altar-steps and on the altar itself, and had even piled their arms and hung up their knapsacks on the splendid tomb of Pope Eugenius IV., which was the principal object of our visit.[364]We went on hence to the Vallicella, where we saw the home and relics of S. Filippo Neri—his fine statue in the sacristy, his little cell with its original furniture, his stick, his shoes, the crucifix he held when he was dying, the coffin in which he lay in state, the pictures which belonged to him, and the little inner chapel with the altar at which he prayed, adorned with the original picture, candlesticks, and ornaments."Another excursion has been to the Emporium, reached by an unpleasant approach, the Via della Serpe behind the Marmorata, an Immondezzajo half a mile long; but it is a fine mass of ruin, with an old gothic loggia, in a beautiful vineyard full of rare and curious marbles. Close by, on the bank of theTiber, the ancient port of the Marmorata is now being cleaned out."My dearest Mother continues very ailing and terribly weak, but I am hopeful now (as the cold months are so far advanced), that we may steer through the remainder of the winter, and that I may once more have the blessing of taking her back to England restored to health and power. Every Friday she has been seriously ill, but has rallied afterwards. On Friday 17th, she was very ill, and I was too anxious about her to rest at all during the night, but perpetually flitted ghost-like in and out of her room. Last Friday again she was, if anything, worse still, such a terrible cloud coming over all her powers, with the most complete exhaustion. I scarcely left her all day. When these sad days are over, life becomes quite different, so heavy is the burden lifted off, and it is difficult to realise all that they have been, the wearing anxiety as to what is best to be done, the terribly desolate future seeming so near at hand, all the after scenes presenting themselves so vividly, like fever phantoms, to the imagination, and then sometimes the seeming carried with my dearest one to the very gates of the unseen world.... She is always patient, always self-forgetful, and her obedience to her 'doctor,' as she calls me, is too touching, too entirely confiding and childlike. Oh, if our unity is broken by death, no one,no onewill ever realise what it has been. Come what will, I can bless God for this winter, in which that union has been without one tarnished moment, one passing difference, in which my sweetest one has entirely leant upon me, and I have entirely lived for her."Feb. 9.—There is no improvement in my dearest Mother. If there is a temporary rally, it is followed by a worse attack and intense fits of exhaustion, and the effort of going up and down stairs fatigues her so much that it is difficult to judge how far it is wise to gratify her constant craving for air. On Tuesday, Lea and I took her to the Monte Mario, and she sat in the carriage while we got out and picked flowers in the Villa Mellini. That day she was certainly better, and able to enjoy the drive to a certain degree, and to admire the silver foam of the fountains of St. Peter's as we passed them. I often think how doubly touching these and many other beautiful sights may become to me, if I should be left here, when she, with whom I have so often enjoyed them, has passed away from us to the vision of other and more glorious scenes."It is in these other scenes, nothere, that I often think my darling's mind is already wandering. When she sits in her great weakness, doing nothing, yet so quiet, and with her loving beautiful smile ever on her revered countenance, it is surely of no earthly scenes that my darling is thinking."In the night I am often seized with an irresistible longing to know how she is, and then I steal quietly through the softly opening doors into her room and watch her asleep by the light of the night-lamp. Even then the face in its entire repose wears the same sweet expression of childlike confidence and peace."I dined with Mrs. Robert Bruce one day, meeting Miss Monk and Cavendish Taylor, and went with them afterwards to see the 'Grande Duchesse de Gerolstein' acted. It was in a booth in the PiazzaNavona, such as is generally used for wild beasts at a fair, and where one would expect an audience of the very lowest of the people; but instead the place was crowded with the mostéliteof the Roman princes and their families. The acting was wonderful, and the dresses and scenery very beautiful. It is said that the actors are a single family, fourteen sons, three daughters, and their cook!"At the Shakspeare Woods' I met Miss Charlotte Cushman, the great American tragic actress, who has been living here for some years. She was the Mrs. Siddons of her time in America, and places were taken weeks beforehand for the nights when she acted. She does a great deal of good here and is intensely beloved. In appearance she is much like Miss Boyle,[365]with white hair rolled back, and is of most winning and gracious manners. I went to a party at her house last night, and never saw anything more dignified and graceful than her reception of her guests, or more charming than her entertainment of them. She sang, but as she has little voice left, it was rather dramatic representation than song, though most beautiful and pathetic."The American Consul, Mr. Cushman, told me he had crossed the Atlantic forty-seven times. The last time he returned was during the cholera at Albano, and he described its horrors. A hundred and fifty people died in the village on the first day, and were all thrown immediately into a large pit by a regiment of Zouaves, happily quartered there, and were tumbled in just as they happened to fall. The next day, so many more died, that soldiers were sent down into the pit to packthe bodies closer, so as to fit more in. The bodies already in the pit were so entangled, that several arms and legs were pulled off in the process. The Zouaves employed in the work all died."

"On the 29th we crossed once more the grand pass of Bracco, with its glorious scenery of billowy mountains ending in the delicate peaks of Carrara; and webaited at a wretched village where Mother was able to walk in the sunny road. Yesterday we came here by the exquisite railway under Massa Ducale, and were rapturously welcomed by Victoire[358]and her daughter."

"Palazzo Parisani, Rome, Dec. 10.—We had a wearisome journey here on the 3rd, the train not attempting to keep any particular time, and stopping more than an hour at Orbetello for the 'discorso' of the guard and engine-driver,[359]and at other stations in proportion. However, Mother quite revived when the great masses of the aqueducts began to show in the moonlight. They had given up expecting us in the Palazzo, where my sister has lent us her apartments, and it was long before we could get any one to open the door.

"It has been bitterly cold ever since we arrived and the air filled with snow. The first acquaintance I saw was the Pope! He was at the Trinità de' Monte, and I waited to see him come down the steps and receive his blessing on our first Roman morning. He looked dreadfully weak, and Monsignor Talbot seemed to be holding him tight up lest he should fall. The Neapolitan royal family I have already seen, always in their deep mourning.[360]

"The Pincio is still surrounded with earthworks, and the barricades remain outside the gates: a greatopen moat yawns in front of the door of the English Church. The barrack near St. Peter's is a hideous ruin. The accounts of the battle of Mentana are awful: when the Pontificals had expended all their ammunition, they rushed upon the Garibaldians and tore them with their teeth.

"Terrible misery has been left by the cholera, and the streets are far more full of beggars than ever. The number of deaths has been frightful—Princess Colonna and her daughters; old Marchese Serlupi; Müller the painter and his child; Mrs. Foljambe's old maid of thirty years; Mrs. Ramsay's donna and the man who made tea at her parties, are amongst those we have known. The first day we were out, Lea and I saw a woman in deep mourning, who was evidently begging, look wistfully at us, and had some difficulty in recognising Angela, our donna of 1863. Her husband, handsome Antonio the fisherman, turned black of the cholera in the Pescheria, and died in a few hours, and her three children have been ill ever since.

"Mrs. Shakspeare Wood has been to see us, and described the summer which she has spent here—six thousand deaths in Rome between May and November, sixty in the Forum of Trajan, thirty in the Purificazione alone. The Government wisely forbade any funeral processions, and did not allow the bells to be tolled, and the dead were taken away at night. Then came the war. The gates were closed, and an edict published bidding all the citizens, when they heard 'cinque colpi di cannóne, d'andare subito a casa.' The Woods laid in quantities of flour, and spent £5 incheese, only remembering afterwards that, having forgotten to lay in any fuel, they could not have baked their bread."

"Dec. 13.—Yesterday I went to Mrs. Robert De Selby.[361]She described the excitement of the battles. In the thick of it all she got a safe-conduct and drove out to Mentana to be near her husband in case he was wounded. She also drove several times to the army with provisions and cordials. If they tried to stop her, she said she was an officer's wife taking him his dinner, and they let her pass. One of the officers said afterwards to her mother, 'La sua figlia vale un altro dragone.'

"She told me Lady Anne S. Giorgio (her mother),[362]was living in the Mercede, and I went there at once. She was overjoyed to see me, and embraced me with the utmost affection. She is also enchanted to be near the Mother, her 'saint in a Protestant niche.' She is come here because 'all the old sinners in Florence' disapproved of her revolutionary tendencies. Lady Anne remembered my father's great intimacy with Mezzofanti. She said my father had once a servant who came from an obscure part of Hungary where they spoke a very peculiar dialect. One day, going to Mezzofanti, he took his servant with him. The Cardinal asked the man where he came from, and, on his telling him, addressed him in the dialect of his native place. The man screamed violently, and, making for the door, tried to escape: he took Mezzofanti for a wizard.

"Lady Anne recollected my father's extreme enjoyment of a scene of this kind. There was a Dr. Taylor who used to worship the heathen gods—Mars and Mercury, and the rest. One day at Oxford, in the presence of my father and of one of the professors, he took his little silver images of the gods out of his pocket and began to pray to them and burn incense. The professor, intensely shocked, tried to interfere, but my father started up—'Howcanyou be so foolish?dobe quiet: don't you see you're interrupting the comedy?' The same Dr. Taylor was afterwards arrested for sacrificing a bullock to Neptune in a back-parlour in London!"

"44 Piazza di Spagna, Dec. 29.—We moved here on the 20th to a delightfully comfortable apartment, which is a perfect sun-trap. Most truly luxurious indeed does Rome seem after Cannes—food, house, carriages, all so good and reasonable. I actually gave a party before we left my sister's apartment, lighting up those fine rooms, and issuing the invitations in my own name, in order that Mother might not feel obliged to appear unless quite equal to it at the moment. Three days after I had another party for children—tea and high romps afterwards in the long drawing-room.

"On the 21st I went with the Erskines, Mrs. Ramsay, and Miss Garden, by rail to Monte Rotondo. The quantity of soldiers at the station and all along the road quite allayed any fears of brigands which had been entertained regarding the mile and a half between the village and the railway. The situation proved quite beautiful—the old houses crowned by thePiombino castle, rising from vineyards and gardens, backed by the purple peak of Monte Gennaro. Beyond, in the hollow, is the convent where Garibaldi was encamped, and farther still the battlefield of Mentana.

"On the 23rd there was a magnificent reception at the Spanish Embassy. Every one went to salute the new ambassador, Don Alessandro del Castro, and the whole immense suite of rooms thrown open had a glorious effect. There was an abundance of cardinals, and the Roman princesses all arrived in their diamonds. The Borgheses came in as a family procession, headed by Princess Borghese in blue velvet and diamonds. The young English Princess Teano looked lovely in blue velvet and gold brocade. On Christmas Day I went to St Peter's for the coming in of the Pope, and stayed long enough to see Francis II. arrive with his suite. In the afternoon I took Lea to the Ara Cœli and Sta. Maria Maggiore. At the Ara Cœli great confusion prevails and much enthusiasm on account of a new miracle. When people were ill, upon their paying a scudo for the carriage, the Santo Bambino was brought by two of the monks, and left upon the sick-bed, to be fetched away some hours after in the same way. A sacrilegious lady determined to take advantage of this to steal the Bambino; so she pretended her child was ill and paid her scudo; but as soon as ever the monks were gone, she had a false Bambino, which she had caused to be prepared, dressed up in the clothes of the real one, and when the monks came back they took away the false Bambino without discovering the fraud, and carried it to the place of honour in the Church of Ara Cœli.

"That night the convent awoke to fearful alarm, every bell rang at the same moment, awful sounds were heard at the doors; the trembling brotherhood hastened to the church, but loud and fast the knocks continued on the very door of the sanctuary ('bussava, bussava, bussava'). At last they summoned courage to approach the entrance with lights, and behold, a little tiny pink child's foot, which was poked in under the door; and they opened the door wide, and there without, on the platform at the head of the steps, stood, in the wind and the rain, quite naked, the real Bambino of Ara Cœli. So then the real child was restored to its place, and the lady, confounded and disgraced, was bidden to take the false child home again.

"Our donna, Louisa, was in ecstasies when she told us this story—'Oh com' è graziosa, oh com' è graziosa questa storia,'—and she never can understand why we do not send for the Bambino to cure Mother of all her ailments, though, in consequence of the theft, it is now never left alone in a house, but is taken away by the same monks who bring it. Lea was imprudent enough to say she did not believe the Bambino would ever doherany good; but when Louisa, looking at her with wondering eyes, asked why, said weakly, 'Because I have such a bad heart,' in which Louisa quite acquiesced as a reason.

"It had been a sad shadow hitherto over all this winter that my sweetest Mother had been so ill. At Parisani I had many sad days and nights too. She suffered almost constantly from pain in the back, and moaned in a way which went to my very heart....Twice only in the fortnight was Mother able to get out to the Forum and walk in the sun from the Coliseum to the Capitol, and she felt the cold most terribly, and certainly the Palazzo was very cold.

"At first, when we came to this house, Mother was better, and she was delighted with these rooms, which fulfilled a presentiment she had told me of before we left home, that this winter she should have the pleasantest apartment she had ever had yet. But on the 21st she was chilled when driving with Mrs. Hall to Torre Quinto, and that evening quite lost her power of articulation. It only lasted about an hour.... She was conscious of it afterwards, and said, 'It was so odd, I was not able to speak.' Some days after, though able to articulate, she was unable to find the words she needed, calling the commonest things by their wrong names, and this was the more alarming as more likely to be continuous. On Thursday she was well enough to drive with me to the Aqua Acetosa, and walk there in the sun on the muddy Tiber bank, but that evening she became worse, and since then has scarcely been out of bed."

"Dec. 30.—On Saturday I was constantly restless, with a sense of fire near me, but could discover nothing burning in the apartment. I had such a strong presentiment of fire that I refused to go out all day. When Lea came in with my tea at 8P.M., I told her what an extraordinary noise I continually heard—a sort of rushing over the ceiling, which was of strained canvas—but she thought nothing of it. Soon after she was gone, a shower of sparks burst into the room andlarge pieces of burning wood forced their way through a hole in the ceiling. Shouting to Lea, I rushed up to the next floor, and rang violently and continuously at the bell, shouting 'Fuoco, fuoco;' but the owners of the apartment were gone to bed and would not get up; so, without losing time, I flew downstairs, roused the porter, sent him off to fetch Ferdinando Manetti, who was responsible for our apartment, and then for thepompieri. Meantime the servants of Miss Robertson, who lived below us, had come to our help, and assisted in keeping the fire under with sponges of water, while Lea and I rushed about securing money, valuables, drawings, &c., and then, dragging out our great boxes, began rapidly to fill them. Mother was greatly astonished at seeing us moving in and out with great piles of things in our arms, but did not realise at once what had happened. I had just arranged for her being wrapped up in blankets and carried through the streets to Palazzo Parisani, when thepompieriarrived. From that time there was no real danger. They tore up the bricks of the floor above us, and poured water through upon the charred and burning beams, and a cascade of black water and hot bricks tumbled through together into our drawing-room."

ToMISSWRIGHT.

"Jan. 1.—Alas! I can give but a poor account of her who occupies all my real thoughts and interests. My sweetest Mother is still very, very feeble, and quite touchingly helpless. She varies like a thermometer with the weather, and if it is fine, is wellenough to see Mrs. Hall and one or two friends, but she is seldom able to be dressed before twelve o'clock, and often has to lie down again before four. I seldom like to be away from her long, and never by day or night feel really free from anxiety."

JOURNAL.

"Jan. 2, 1868.—I have been out twice in the evening—to Mrs. Ramsay to meet M. de Soveral, the ex-minister of Portugal, and his wife and daughter, and to Mrs. Hall to meet the Erskines. Mrs. Hall described a sermon she had lately heard at the Coliseum, the whole object of which was the glorification of Mary Queen of Scots. It was most painful, she said, describing how Elizabeth, who turned only to her Bible, died a prey to indescribable torments of mind, while Mary, clinging to her crucifix, died religiously and devoutly.

"The Marchesa Serlupi has given a fearful account of the Albano tragedy. The old Marchese had come to them greatly worn out with his labours in attendance on the Pope during the canonisation,[363]and he was seized with cholera almost at once. When the doctor came, his hair was standing on end with horror. He said he had not sat down for eighteen hours, hurrying from one to another. He said the old Marchese had the cholera, and it was no use doing anything for him, he would be dead in a few hours. The Marchesa thought he had gone mad with fright, which in fact he had. When he was gone, she gave remedies of her own to the old man, which subdued the cholera at the time,but he sank afterwards from exhaustion. During that time the dead all around them were being carried out: the Appian Way was quite choked up by those who were in flight, and people were dying among the tombs all along the wayside.

"As soon as the old Marchese was dead, the Serlupi family determined to fly. As the Marchesa had been constantly nursing the old man, she would not take her child with her, and sent him on first in another carriage. When they got half way, a man came up to them saying that the person who was with the child in the other carriage was in the agonies of death, and they had to take the child into their own carriage. At the half-way house they stopped to inquire for a party of friends who had preceded them: five had fled in the carriage, three were already dead! There was only one remedy which was never known to fail: it was discovered by a Capuchin monk, and is given in wine. It is not known what the medicine is, and its effect entirely depends upon the exact proportions being given. The Marchesa used to send dozens of wine to the Capuchin, and then give it away impregnated with the medicine to the poor people in Rome.

"To-day my darling has been rather better, and was able to drive for an hour on the Pincio. Yesterday evening she prayed aloud for herself most touchingly before both me and Lea, that God would look upon her infirmities, that He would forgive her weakness, and supply the insufficiency of her prayers. Her sweet pleading voice, tremulous with weakness, went to our hearts, and her trembling upturned look was inexpressibly affecting."

"Feb. 4.—When we first came here, we were much attracted by Francesca Bengivenga, a pleasant cordial woman who lets the apartment above us, and who lived in a corner of it with her nice respectable old mother. Lea went up to see them, and gave quite a pretty description of the old woman sitting quietly in her room at needlework, while the daughter bustled about.

"On January 9 we were startled by seeing a procession carrying the Last Sacraments up our staircase, and on inquiry heard that it was to a very old woman who was dying at the top of the house. Late in the evening it occurred to Lea that the sick person at the top of the house might perhaps be in want, and she went up to Francesca to inquire if she could be of any use. Then, for the first time, we heard that it had been Francesca's mother who had been ill, and that she had died an hour after the priests had been. Francesca herself was in most terrible anguish of grief, but obliged to control herself, because only a few days before she had let her apartment, and did not venture to tell her lodgers what had occurred in the house. So whenever the bell rang, she had to dry her tears by an effort, and appear as if nothing had happened. We urged her to reveal the truth, which at length she did with a great burst of sobs, and the tenants took it well. The next day at four o'clock the old woman was carried away, and on the following morning I pleased Francesca by attending at themessa cantatain S. Andrea delle Fratte.

"On January 10 Charlotte and Gina Leycester arrived. By way of showing civilities to acquaintance,I have had several excursions to the different hills, explaining the churches and vineyards with the sights they contain. On the Aventine I had a very large—too large a party. With the Erskines I went to San Salvatore in Lauro, where the old convent is partially turned into a barrack, and was filled with Papal Zouaves, who spoke a most unintelligible jargon which turned out to be High Dutch. A very civil little officer, however, took us into a grand old chapel opening out of the cloisters, but now occupied as a soldiers' dormitory, and filled with rows of beds, while groups of soldiers were sitting on the altar-steps and on the altar itself, and had even piled their arms and hung up their knapsacks on the splendid tomb of Pope Eugenius IV., which was the principal object of our visit.[364]We went on hence to the Vallicella, where we saw the home and relics of S. Filippo Neri—his fine statue in the sacristy, his little cell with its original furniture, his stick, his shoes, the crucifix he held when he was dying, the coffin in which he lay in state, the pictures which belonged to him, and the little inner chapel with the altar at which he prayed, adorned with the original picture, candlesticks, and ornaments.

"Another excursion has been to the Emporium, reached by an unpleasant approach, the Via della Serpe behind the Marmorata, an Immondezzajo half a mile long; but it is a fine mass of ruin, with an old gothic loggia, in a beautiful vineyard full of rare and curious marbles. Close by, on the bank of theTiber, the ancient port of the Marmorata is now being cleaned out.

"My dearest Mother continues very ailing and terribly weak, but I am hopeful now (as the cold months are so far advanced), that we may steer through the remainder of the winter, and that I may once more have the blessing of taking her back to England restored to health and power. Every Friday she has been seriously ill, but has rallied afterwards. On Friday 17th, she was very ill, and I was too anxious about her to rest at all during the night, but perpetually flitted ghost-like in and out of her room. Last Friday again she was, if anything, worse still, such a terrible cloud coming over all her powers, with the most complete exhaustion. I scarcely left her all day. When these sad days are over, life becomes quite different, so heavy is the burden lifted off, and it is difficult to realise all that they have been, the wearing anxiety as to what is best to be done, the terribly desolate future seeming so near at hand, all the after scenes presenting themselves so vividly, like fever phantoms, to the imagination, and then sometimes the seeming carried with my dearest one to the very gates of the unseen world.... She is always patient, always self-forgetful, and her obedience to her 'doctor,' as she calls me, is too touching, too entirely confiding and childlike. Oh, if our unity is broken by death, no one,no onewill ever realise what it has been. Come what will, I can bless God for this winter, in which that union has been without one tarnished moment, one passing difference, in which my sweetest one has entirely leant upon me, and I have entirely lived for her.

"Feb. 9.—There is no improvement in my dearest Mother. If there is a temporary rally, it is followed by a worse attack and intense fits of exhaustion, and the effort of going up and down stairs fatigues her so much that it is difficult to judge how far it is wise to gratify her constant craving for air. On Tuesday, Lea and I took her to the Monte Mario, and she sat in the carriage while we got out and picked flowers in the Villa Mellini. That day she was certainly better, and able to enjoy the drive to a certain degree, and to admire the silver foam of the fountains of St. Peter's as we passed them. I often think how doubly touching these and many other beautiful sights may become to me, if I should be left here, when she, with whom I have so often enjoyed them, has passed away from us to the vision of other and more glorious scenes.

"It is in these other scenes, nothere, that I often think my darling's mind is already wandering. When she sits in her great weakness, doing nothing, yet so quiet, and with her loving beautiful smile ever on her revered countenance, it is surely of no earthly scenes that my darling is thinking.

"In the night I am often seized with an irresistible longing to know how she is, and then I steal quietly through the softly opening doors into her room and watch her asleep by the light of the night-lamp. Even then the face in its entire repose wears the same sweet expression of childlike confidence and peace.

"I dined with Mrs. Robert Bruce one day, meeting Miss Monk and Cavendish Taylor, and went with them afterwards to see the 'Grande Duchesse de Gerolstein' acted. It was in a booth in the PiazzaNavona, such as is generally used for wild beasts at a fair, and where one would expect an audience of the very lowest of the people; but instead the place was crowded with the mostéliteof the Roman princes and their families. The acting was wonderful, and the dresses and scenery very beautiful. It is said that the actors are a single family, fourteen sons, three daughters, and their cook!

"At the Shakspeare Woods' I met Miss Charlotte Cushman, the great American tragic actress, who has been living here for some years. She was the Mrs. Siddons of her time in America, and places were taken weeks beforehand for the nights when she acted. She does a great deal of good here and is intensely beloved. In appearance she is much like Miss Boyle,[365]with white hair rolled back, and is of most winning and gracious manners. I went to a party at her house last night, and never saw anything more dignified and graceful than her reception of her guests, or more charming than her entertainment of them. She sang, but as she has little voice left, it was rather dramatic representation than song, though most beautiful and pathetic.

"The American Consul, Mr. Cushman, told me he had crossed the Atlantic forty-seven times. The last time he returned was during the cholera at Albano, and he described its horrors. A hundred and fifty people died in the village on the first day, and were all thrown immediately into a large pit by a regiment of Zouaves, happily quartered there, and were tumbled in just as they happened to fall. The next day, so many more died, that soldiers were sent down into the pit to packthe bodies closer, so as to fit more in. The bodies already in the pit were so entangled, that several arms and legs were pulled off in the process. The Zouaves employed in the work all died."

I often saw Miss Cushman afterwards, and greatly valued her friendship. Hers was a noble and almost unique character, a benignant influence upon all she came in contact with. Her youth had been a long struggle, but it gave her a wonderful sympathy with young artists striving as she herself had done, and for them her purse, her hand, and her heart were always open. When she was only a "stock actress," the wife of the manager, who played herself and was jealous of her talents, got her husband to give her a very inferior part: it was that of Nancy Sykes in "Oliver Twist." Miss Cushman saw through the motive, and determined to prepare herself thoroughly. She disappeared. She went down to the worst part of the town, and remained for four days amongst all the lowest women there, till she understood them thoroughly and could imitate their peculiarities to perfection. Her first appearance, when she strolled on to the stage chewing a sprig of a tree, as they all do, took the house by storm, and from that time it was at her feet. The play of "Guy Mannering" was written to suither in the part of Meg Merrilies. She would take an hour and a half to get herself up for it, painting all the veins on her arms, &c., and her success was wonderful.

She had been originally intended for an opera-singer, but, just when she was to appear, she had a dangerous illness, and, when she recovered, her voice was gone. But she wasted no time in regrets: she immediately turned to being an actress. This power of making the best of whateverwas, formed one of the grandest traits of her character.

She died of what, to many, is the most terrible of all diseases. She insisted on an operation; but when she went to have it repeated, the great surgeons told her it was no use, and advised her to devote her remaining life to whatever would most take her out of herself and make her forget her pain. Then she, who had left the stage so long, went back to it as Meg Merrilies again and had all her old triumphs. And the last time she appeared, when she, as it were, took leave of the stage for ever, she repeated the words "I shall haunt this old glen," &c., in a way which sent a cold shiver down the backs of all who heard them.

Miss Stebbings' interesting Life of Miss Cushman is inadequate. It dwells too muchon the successful part. What were really interesting, and also useful to those beginning life, would have been the true story of the struggles of her youth, and how her noble nature overcame them.

JOURNAL."Feb. 10.—My dearest Mother is better and up again, sweet and smiling. Last week, after poor Mrs. C. had died, Mrs. Ramsay, not knowing it, sent to inquire after her. 'E andata in Paradiso,' said her old servant Francesco, quite simply, when he came back.""Feb. 25.—On the 16th old Don Francesco Chigi died, a most well-known figure to be missed out of Roman life. He was buried with perfectly mediæval pomp the next day at the Popolo. The procession down the Corso from the Chigi Palace was most gorgeous, the long line of princely carriages and the running footmen with their huge torches and splendid liveries, the effect enhanced by the darkness of the night, for it was at nine o'clock in the evening."Yesterday I rushed with all the world to St. Peter's to stare at the bridal of Donna Guendalina Doria, who had just been married at S. Agnese to the Milanese Conte della Somaglia. The Pope gave her his benediction and a prayer-book bound in solid gold and diamonds. Thirteen carriages full of relations escorted her to St. Peter's, but very few had courage to come with her into the church. She looked well in a long lace veil and white silk cloak striped with gold."My sweet Mother has gained very little ground the last fortnight. Yesterday for the first time she went out—carried down and upstairs by Benedetto and Louisa, and drove with Charlotte to the Villa Doria. But in the evening her breathing was difficult. To-day I drove with Lady Bloomfield[366]and Jane Adeane to the Campagna, and when I came back I found that she had been quite ill the whole time. The dear face looks sadly worn.""Feb. 27.—When I went into my darling's room at 3A.M., both she and Lea were sleeping quietly, but when I went again at six, the Mother had been long awake, and oppressed with great difficulty of breathing. At half-past nine Dr. Grilli came and begged for another opinion.... How did I bear it when he said that my darling was in the greatest danger, that if she would desire any spiritual consolations, they ought to be sent for! Then I lost all hope. 'No,' I said, 'she has long lived more in heaven than on earth.' 'Quello se vede,' said Dr. Grilli."I questioned whether she should be told the danger she was in, but I decided not; for has not my darling been for years standing on the threshold of the heavenly kingdom? Death could toheronly be the passing quite over that threshold, and to us the last glimpse of her most sweet presence here."2P.M.—Charlotte Leycester and Emma Simpkinson have been with me in the room all morning by turns.I cannot but think her slightly better. The shutter has just been opened that she may see the sun, which poured into the room. My darling was sitting up then and smiled to see it."5½P.M.—Waiting for the consultation of doctors. How I dread it, yet I cannot but think they will find my darling better. I have a feeling that there must still be hope. At two I went in a carriage to the Villa Negroni,[367]as the most solitary place I knew, and there spent an hour on that terraced walk beneath the house in which I was born, where my two mothers walked up and down together before my birth, and where I have often been, oh! so happy in the sunshine of her presence who is life to me."Coming back, I went into the Church of the Angeli. A white Carthusian was kneeling there alone. I knelt too and prayed—not that God would give my darling back to me unless it were His will, but oh! so earnestly that there might be no pain in her departure."Mrs. Woodward and Miss Finucane want to come and sit up—always good and kind. Grilli has been this evening with Dr. Bertoldi, and says everything depends on how she passes the next night: if she sleeps and the breathing becomes easier, we may hope, but even then it will be most difficult to regain the ground lost. In this I buoy myself up thattheyknow nothing of her wonderful power of rallying."When Charlotte went away for the night, she said, 'I shall think of you, dear, and pray for youvery much to-night.'—'Yes, into the Lord's hands I commend my spirit,' said my darling solemnly."9A.M.Feb. 28, Friday.—Last night, when I wished her good-night, she said in her sweetest manner, 'Don't be too anxious; it is all in His hands.' Lea went to bed and Emma Simpkinson sat upon the sofa. I went in and out all through the night. Since 4A.M.she has been less well!"6P.M.—I went rapidly to-day in a little carriage to St. Peter's, and kneeling at the grating of the chapel of the Sacrament by Sixtus IV.'s tomb, IimploredGod to take two years out of my life and to add them to my Mother's. I could not part with her now. If there is power in prayer, Imusthave been heard. I was back within the hour."When Charlotte came, she repeated to the Mother the texts about the saints in white robes, and then said 'Perhaps, dear, you will be with them soon—perhaps it is as in our favourite hymn, "Just passing over the brink."'—'Yes,' said my darling, 'it cannot last long; this is quite wearing me out.' I heard this through the door, for I could not bear to be in the room. Then Charlotte said, 'The Lord be with you,' or similar words, and my darling answered 'Yes, and may He be with those who are left as well as with those who are taken.' At this moment I came in and kissed my darling. Charlotte, not knowing I had heard, then repeated what she had said. 'She is praying that God may be with you and with me,' she said. I could not bear it, and went back to the next room. Charlotte came in and kissed me. 'I cannot say what Ifeel for you,' she said. I begged her not to say so now, 'as long as there was anything to be done I must not give way.'""3P.M.Saturday.—The night was one of terrible suffering. Mrs. Woodward sat up, but I could not leave the room. In the morning my darling said, 'I never thought it would have been like this; I thought it would have been unconscious. The valley of the Shadow of Death is a dark valley, but there is light at the end.... No more pain.... The Rock of Ages, that is my rock.' Then I read the three prayers in the Visitation Service. 'It will be over soon,' she said; 'I am going to rest.'"'Will you give me some little word of blessing, darling?' I said. 'The Lord keep you and comfort you, my dear child,' she said. 'Don't fret too much.Hewill give you comfort.' I had begged that Mrs. Woodward would call in Lea, who was now kneeling between us at the bedside. 'And you bless poor Lea too,' I said. 'Yes, dear Lea; she has been a most good and faithful and dear servant to me. I pray that God may be with her and John, and keep them, and I hope that they will be faithful and loving to you, as they have been to me, as long as you need them.... Be reconciled to all who have been unkind to you, darling; love them all, this is my great wish, love—love—love—oh, I have tried to live for love—oh! love one another, that is the great thing—love, love, love!'"'The Lord bless and comfort you, dear,' she said to Charlotte. 'Be a mother to my child.'—'I will,'said Charlotte, and then my darling's hand took mine and held it."'We look for the salvation of the Lord Jesus Christ,' said Charlotte. 'Yes, and it was here that it first dawned upon me ... through much tribulation.... He will be with me, and He will be with those who are left.'"'We look for the King in His beauty,' said Charlotte. 'Yes, beauty such as we have never seen,' my darling said. 'Eye hath not seen nor ear heard the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him. Oh, I have been able to serve Him very little.'—'Yes, darling, but you have loved Him much.'"'I send my love to all my dear ones in England; none are forgotten, none.' Then, after a pause, 'Tell your sister that we shall meet where there is no more controversy, and where we shall know thoroughly as we are known.'"In the night the terrible pain came on, which lasted many hours and gave us all such anguish. 'And He bore all this,' she said, and at one of her worst moments—'He that trusteth in Thee shall never be put to confusion.' What these trembling words were to us I cannot say, with her great suffering and the sadly sunken look of her revered features. Mrs. Woodward cried bitterly."'Mine eyes look to the hills, from whence cometh my help,' said Charlotte when she came in. 'You have loved the Psalms so much, haven't you, dear?'—'Yes, the Psalms so much.'—'All Thy waves and storms pass over me,' said Charlotte, 'but the Rock resisteth the flood.'—'Yes, theRock,' said my darling. 'Thefloods lift up their waves, but the Lord is mightier.'—'He is mightier,' she repeated. 'The Lord is a refuge and a strong tower,' said Charlotte. 'He isindeed,' she answered with emphasis; 'it is a dark valley, but there is light beyond, for He is the strength of my heart and my portion for ever.'"She bade me in the early morning not to leave her, and I sat by her without moving from 6A.M.till 1P.M.'Oh, you will all besotired,' she said once. When she was very ill, Charlotte leant over her and said, 'I am oppressed, O Lord, undertake for me: may the everlasting arms be beneath you.'—'Yes,' she said.""March 1, Sunday morning.—How long it is! At 6P.M.she was very restless and suffering. At last she gave me her hand and lay down with me supporting the pillows behind. She spoke quite clearly, and said, 'My blessing and darling, may you be blessed in time and eternity!' This quiet sleep seemed to soothe and rest her, and afterwards Lea was able to take my place for an hour. But the night was terrible. Mrs. Woodward and Miss Finucane both sat up with me. Once she said, 'Through the grave and the gate of death ... a glorious resurrection.' At seven, she was speaking again, and leaning over her I heard, 'How long, how long? when will the Bridegroom come?'""4P.M.Monday, March 2.—A rather less suffering night. Dear Miss Garden sat up with me, saying she felt as if it was her own mother who was lying there, and Mother rambled gently to her about 'goinghome.' At 7A.M.she fell asleep sweetly with her hand clasped in both of mine. I did not venture to move, and sank from my knees into a sitting position on the floor; so we remained for nearly an hour. When she waked, her moan was more definite. 'Oh, for rest! oh, for rest!' I said, 'Darling, rest is coming soon.'—'Yes,' she said, 'my health will all come back to me soon; no infirmities and no pains any more.""10A.M.—When Charlotte went at nine, I thought my darling sinking more rapidly, and Dr. Grilli when he came told us it was all but impossible she could rally. She looks to me at moments quite passing away. I would not call my darling back for worlds now: if God took her, I could only be lost in thankfulness that her pains were over. Oh, that she may be soon in that perfect health which we shall not be permitted to see. I scarcely leave her a moment now, though it is agony to me if she coughs or suffers. Can I afford to lose one look from those beloved eyes, one passing expression of those revered features? So I sit beside her through the long hours, now moistening her lips, now giving her water from a spoon, now and then a little soup-jelly, which she finds it easier to swallow than the soup itself, and now and then my darling gently gives me her hand to hold in mine. 'Rest in bliss,' she said to Mrs. Woodward, 'rest ever in bliss.' Afterwards Charlotte said, 'When thou passest through the waters, they shall not overflow thee: underneath thee are ... the everlasting arms.""12½P.M.—Charlotte has repeated sentences from the Litany—'By Thine agony and bloody sweat.' Wethought she scarcely understood at first, then her lips, almost inaudibly, repeated the sentences. Soon she said, 'It issolong coming!' Then Charlotte read, 'Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord, for theyrestfrom their labours.' She opened her eyes, looked up at Charlotte, and said, 'Oh, how well I know you!'"1P.M.—After some minutes' quiet she opened her eyes with surprise and said, 'I thought I was safe home; I thought I was, yet I can move, so I suppose it will not be yet.'"2P.M.—Her face has lost all its troubled look, and though she still moans, there is a happy appearance of repose stealing over her features."3P.M.—When C. L. came in she said, 'Oh, Charlotte, I thought it was all over. I did not hear the noise of the waves any more. Oh, they were so very tormenting, and then, when I did not hear them, I thought it was over, and then I heard your voice, and I knew I was still here.... I have no more pain now.... It was very long, but I suppose He thought He would knock out all that was bad in me.'"Midnight, Monday.—After a terrible afternoon, she had such an extraordinary rally in the evening that we all began to hope. But soon after there was another change. Her features altered, her face sunk, but her expression was of the most transcendent happiness. Thinking the last moment was come, we knelt around the bed, I alone on the right; Charlotte, Lea, and Mrs. Woodward on the left; the nurse, Angela Mayer, at the foot. Charlotte and Mrs. W. prayed aloud. Then my darling, in broken accents, difficult to understand, but which I, leaning over her, repeated to the others, began to speak—'I am going to glory ... I have no pain now ... I see the light ... Oh, I amsohappy ... no more trouble or sorrow or sin ... so extremely happy ... may you all meet me there, not one of you be wanting.'"I, leaning over her, said, 'Do you know me still, darling?'—'Yes, I know and bless you, my dearest son ... peace and love ... glory everlasting ... all sins and infirmities purged away ... rest ... love ... glory ... reign for ever ...see Christ."'Oh, be ready!"'Mary and Arthur and Kate and Emmie and Mamie, faithful servants of Christ, to meet me there in His kingdom."'Let peace and love remain with you always. This is my great wish, peace and love ... peace and love.'"After saying this, my mother solemnly folded her trembling hands together on her breast, and looking up to heaven, said, 'Oh, Lord Jesus, come quickly, and may all these meet me again in Thy kingdom!' As she said this, my darling's eyes seemed fixed upon another world."After this I begged the others to leave me alone with her, and then my dearest one said to me, 'Yes, darling, our love for one another on earth is coming to an end now. We have loved one another very deeply. I don't know how far communion will be still possible, but I soonshallknow; and if it be possible, I shall still be always near you. I shall so love to see and know all you are doing, and to watch over you; and when you hear a little breeze go rustling by, you must think it is the old Mother still near you.... You willdo all I wish, darling, I know. I need not write, you will carry out all my wishes.'—'Yes, dearie,' I said, 'it will be my only comfort when you are gone to do all you would have wished. I will always stay at Holmhurst, darling, and I will continue going to Alton, and I will do everything else I can think of that you would like.'"'Yes, and you must try to conquer self ... to serve God here, and then we may be together again in heaven.... Oh, wemustbe together again there.'"Lea now came in, and my darling stroked her face while she sobbed convulsively. 'Your long work is done at last,' Mother said; 'I have been a great trouble to you both, and perhaps it is as well I should be taken away now, for I am quite worn out. Tell John and all of them that I am sorry to leave them, but perhaps it was for the best; for this is not an illness; it is that I am worn out.... You and Augustus will stay together and comfort one another when I am gone, and you will bear with one another's infirmities and help one another. The great thing of all is to be able to confess that one has been in the wrong. Oh, peace and love, peace and love, these are the great things.'"'Have I been a good child to you, dearest?' I said. 'Oh, yes, indeed—dear and good, dear and good; a little wilful perhaps you used to be, but not lately; you have been all good to me lately—dear and good.'—('Yes, that he has,' said Lea.)—'Faithful and good,' my darling repeated, 'both of you faithful and good.'"Charlotte now came in. 'Here is Charlotte.'—'Dear Charlotte! Oh yes, I know you. I do notknow whether there will be any communication where I am going, but if there is, I shall be very near you. I am going to rest ... rest everlasting. Be a mother to my child. Comfort him when I am gone ... give him good advice.... You know what suggestions I should make.... You will say to him what I should say ... and if he could have a good wife, that would be the best thing ... for what would you do, my child, in this lonely world?... No, a good wife, that is what I wish for you—a good wife and a family home."'And now I should like to speak to kind Mrs. Woodward' (she came in). 'Thank you so much; you have been very good and kind to me, dear Mrs. Woodward. I am going fast to my heavenly home. I have said all I meant to have written all the time I have been ill, and have never been able ... my mouth has been opened that I might speak.'""7A.M.March 3.—'Oh, it is quite beautiful. Good-bye, my own dearest! I cannot believe that you will look up into the clouds and think that I am only there ... but you will also see me in the flowers and in my friends, and in all that I have loved.'"8A.M.—With the morning light my dearest Mother has seemed to become more rapt in holy thoughts and visions, her eyes more intently fixed on the unseen world. At last, with a look of rapture she has exclaimed, 'Oh, angels, I see angels!' and since then pain seems to have left her."8½A.M.—(To Lea.) 'You will take care of him and comfort him, as you have always taken care of me: you have been a dear servant to me.'—'Yes,'said Lea, 'I will always stay with him and take care of him as long as I live. I took care of your dear husband, and I have taken care of you, and I will take care of him as long as he wants me.' 'Darling sweet,' I said to her. 'Yes, darling sweet,' she repeated, with inexpressible tenderness. 'I always hear the tender words you say to me, dear, even in my dreams.' Then she said also to Mrs. Woodward, 'You have been very kind to us; you will comfort Augustus when he is left desolate: you know what sorrow is, you have gone through the valley.... It seems so much worse for others than for me.... For then I shall begin really to live.'"All this time my darling lay with her eyes upturned and an expression of rapt beatitude. The nurse says that in her forty years' nursing she never saw any one like this, so quiet, so happy. 'Nothing ever puts her out or makes her complain: I never saw anything like it.'[368]"8½A.M.—'It is very difficult torealisethat when you are absent from the body you are present with the Lord.'"10A.M.—Dr. Grilli says she may live till evening, even possibly into the night. She has just said, a little wandering, 'You know in a few days some pretty sweet violets will come up, and that will be all that will be left to you of the dear Mother.'"11½A.M.—She has taken leave of Emma Simpkinson and Miss Garden. When I came in she took my hand and said, 'And you, darling, I shall always think of you, and you will think of me. I shall spring up again like the little violets, and I shall put on an incorruptible body. I shall be always floating over you and watching over you somehow: we shall never be separated; and my body will rest beside that of my dear husband. So strange it should be here; perhaps, if it had been anywhere else, I might have wished to get better, but as it was here, the temptation was too great. I am quite worn out. I thought I could not get better after my last illness, and Iwasgiven back to you for a little while, though I have always felt very weak, but I shall be quite well now.'"10A.M.March 4.—All night she wandered gently, saying that she would 'go out and play with the little children; for there can be nothing bad amongst very little children.' In the morning Charlotte still thought there was a chance of her rallying, but Emma Simpkinson and I both think her sinking, and Dr. Grilli says that 'sussulti tendinósi' of the pulses have come on, and that there is not the slightest hope. It can probably only be two hours, though it may last till evening. He has formally taken leave, saying that medicine is useless, and that it is no use for him to return any more. Since the early morning my darling has been lying with her hand in mine, leaning her head against mine on the pillow, her eyes turned upwards, her lips constantly moving in inarticulateprayer. She has asked, 'What day is it? I think it is my birthday to-day.' I have not told her it is her father's birthday, as I believe it will be her own birthday in heaven."11A.M.—She has again appeared to be at the last extremity. Raising her eyes to heaven and taking my hand, she has prayed fervently but inaudibly. Then she prayed audibly for blessings for me and Lea, and, with a grateful look to Emma, added, 'And for dear Emma too.'"1P.M.—She wandered a little, and asked if the battle was over. 'Yes,' said Lea, 'and the victory won.'"1½P.M.—'I am all straight now, no more crookedness.... You must do something, dear, to build yourself up; you must be a good deal pulled down by all this.... Rest now, but work, work for God in life."'Don't expect too much good upon earth."'Don't expect too much perfection in one another."'Work for eternity."'Only try for love."2P.M.—'Oh, how happy I am! I have everything I want here and hereafter.'"2.10.—(With eyes uplifted and hands clasped.) ... 'Living water. The Lamb, the Lamb is the life.'"2.15.—C. L. repeated at her request 'Abide with me, fast falls the eventide.'"2.30.—The dear Mother herself, with her changed voice, clasped hands, and uplifted eyes, has repeated the hymn 'Just as I am, without one plea.'"3P.M.—'I am glad I am not going to stay. I could not do you any more good, and I amsohappy.'"4P.M.—(With intense fervour.) 'O God, O God! God alone can save—one and eternal. Amen! Amen!'"4.15.—'Let us be one in heaven, dear, as we are one on earth.'"4.30.—'Oh, let me go.... I have said I was ready to go so often, but you won't give me up.' I said, 'I think you had better try to sleep a little now, darling.'—'Yes, but let it be the last: I have had so many, many last sleeps.'—'You are in no pain now, dearie?' I said. 'Oh no, no pain; there is no pain on the borderland of heaven."'May He who ruleth all, both in heaven and earth, bless you, my child—bless you and keep you from ill. Love, love, perfect love, love on earth and then love in heaven.... I can hear words from the upper world now and none from the nearer. They have taught me things that were dark to me before.'"5P.M.—'Peace be with you, peace and love."'Sin below, grace above."'We sinners below, Christ above."'All love, all truth in Jesus Christ, my Lord and my God.'"5½P.M.—'Oh, let it be. It could not be better—no doubt, no difficulty.... All the good things of this world, what are they?... soon pass away—pride, vanity, vexation of spirit; but oh! love! love!' It was after saying these words that my darling's face became quite radiant, and that she looked upward with an expression of rapture. 'I see awhite dove,' she said, 'oh, such a beautiful white dove, floating towards me.' Soon after this she exclaimed, 'Oh, Lord Jesus, oh, come quickly'.... When she opened her eyes, 'What a wilful child you are! you will not let your mother depart, and she issoready.'—'Is it he who keeps you?' said C. L. 'No, a better One; but let me go or let me stay, O Lord, I have no will but Thine.'"[369]"2A.M.March 5.—During the night she has prayed constantly aloud for various relations and friends by name, and often for me. Once she said, 'Ever upright, ever just, sometimes irritable, weak in temperament, that others should love him as I have done ... and a good wife, that is what I have always thought.'"8P.M.March 5.—Twice to-day there has been a sudden sinking of nature, life almost extinct, and then, owing to the return of fever, there has been a rally. She became excited if I left her even for a moment, so through last night and to-day I have constantly sat behind her on the bed, supporting her head on a pillow in my arms."10P.M.—Emma Simpkinson is come for the night, but there is a strange change. My mother is asleep! quietly asleep—the fever is reduced after the aconite which I insisted upon, and which the homœopathic doctor saidmustend her life in half-an-hour."Friday evening, March 6.—All day there has been a rally, and she has now power to cough again. Grilli had given the case up, so at noon to-day I had no scruple in sending for Dr. Topham, writing full explanation of the strange case. He says it is the most extraordinary he has ever seen and a most interesting study—'Before such a miracle of nature, science can only sit still.' Life still hangs on a thread, but there is certainly an improvement. She knows none but me.""Saturday evening, March 7.—What a quiet day of respite we have had after all the long tension and anxiety. My darling's face has resumed a natural expression, and she now lies quite quiet, sleeping, and only rousing herself to take nourishment."

JOURNAL.

"Feb. 10.—My dearest Mother is better and up again, sweet and smiling. Last week, after poor Mrs. C. had died, Mrs. Ramsay, not knowing it, sent to inquire after her. 'E andata in Paradiso,' said her old servant Francesco, quite simply, when he came back."

"Feb. 25.—On the 16th old Don Francesco Chigi died, a most well-known figure to be missed out of Roman life. He was buried with perfectly mediæval pomp the next day at the Popolo. The procession down the Corso from the Chigi Palace was most gorgeous, the long line of princely carriages and the running footmen with their huge torches and splendid liveries, the effect enhanced by the darkness of the night, for it was at nine o'clock in the evening.

"Yesterday I rushed with all the world to St. Peter's to stare at the bridal of Donna Guendalina Doria, who had just been married at S. Agnese to the Milanese Conte della Somaglia. The Pope gave her his benediction and a prayer-book bound in solid gold and diamonds. Thirteen carriages full of relations escorted her to St. Peter's, but very few had courage to come with her into the church. She looked well in a long lace veil and white silk cloak striped with gold.

"My sweet Mother has gained very little ground the last fortnight. Yesterday for the first time she went out—carried down and upstairs by Benedetto and Louisa, and drove with Charlotte to the Villa Doria. But in the evening her breathing was difficult. To-day I drove with Lady Bloomfield[366]and Jane Adeane to the Campagna, and when I came back I found that she had been quite ill the whole time. The dear face looks sadly worn."

"Feb. 27.—When I went into my darling's room at 3A.M., both she and Lea were sleeping quietly, but when I went again at six, the Mother had been long awake, and oppressed with great difficulty of breathing. At half-past nine Dr. Grilli came and begged for another opinion.... How did I bear it when he said that my darling was in the greatest danger, that if she would desire any spiritual consolations, they ought to be sent for! Then I lost all hope. 'No,' I said, 'she has long lived more in heaven than on earth.' 'Quello se vede,' said Dr. Grilli.

"I questioned whether she should be told the danger she was in, but I decided not; for has not my darling been for years standing on the threshold of the heavenly kingdom? Death could toheronly be the passing quite over that threshold, and to us the last glimpse of her most sweet presence here.

"2P.M.—Charlotte Leycester and Emma Simpkinson have been with me in the room all morning by turns.I cannot but think her slightly better. The shutter has just been opened that she may see the sun, which poured into the room. My darling was sitting up then and smiled to see it.

"5½P.M.—Waiting for the consultation of doctors. How I dread it, yet I cannot but think they will find my darling better. I have a feeling that there must still be hope. At two I went in a carriage to the Villa Negroni,[367]as the most solitary place I knew, and there spent an hour on that terraced walk beneath the house in which I was born, where my two mothers walked up and down together before my birth, and where I have often been, oh! so happy in the sunshine of her presence who is life to me.

"Coming back, I went into the Church of the Angeli. A white Carthusian was kneeling there alone. I knelt too and prayed—not that God would give my darling back to me unless it were His will, but oh! so earnestly that there might be no pain in her departure.

"Mrs. Woodward and Miss Finucane want to come and sit up—always good and kind. Grilli has been this evening with Dr. Bertoldi, and says everything depends on how she passes the next night: if she sleeps and the breathing becomes easier, we may hope, but even then it will be most difficult to regain the ground lost. In this I buoy myself up thattheyknow nothing of her wonderful power of rallying.

"When Charlotte went away for the night, she said, 'I shall think of you, dear, and pray for youvery much to-night.'—'Yes, into the Lord's hands I commend my spirit,' said my darling solemnly.

"9A.M.Feb. 28, Friday.—Last night, when I wished her good-night, she said in her sweetest manner, 'Don't be too anxious; it is all in His hands.' Lea went to bed and Emma Simpkinson sat upon the sofa. I went in and out all through the night. Since 4A.M.she has been less well!

"6P.M.—I went rapidly to-day in a little carriage to St. Peter's, and kneeling at the grating of the chapel of the Sacrament by Sixtus IV.'s tomb, IimploredGod to take two years out of my life and to add them to my Mother's. I could not part with her now. If there is power in prayer, Imusthave been heard. I was back within the hour.

"When Charlotte came, she repeated to the Mother the texts about the saints in white robes, and then said 'Perhaps, dear, you will be with them soon—perhaps it is as in our favourite hymn, "Just passing over the brink."'—'Yes,' said my darling, 'it cannot last long; this is quite wearing me out.' I heard this through the door, for I could not bear to be in the room. Then Charlotte said, 'The Lord be with you,' or similar words, and my darling answered 'Yes, and may He be with those who are left as well as with those who are taken.' At this moment I came in and kissed my darling. Charlotte, not knowing I had heard, then repeated what she had said. 'She is praying that God may be with you and with me,' she said. I could not bear it, and went back to the next room. Charlotte came in and kissed me. 'I cannot say what Ifeel for you,' she said. I begged her not to say so now, 'as long as there was anything to be done I must not give way.'"

"3P.M.Saturday.—The night was one of terrible suffering. Mrs. Woodward sat up, but I could not leave the room. In the morning my darling said, 'I never thought it would have been like this; I thought it would have been unconscious. The valley of the Shadow of Death is a dark valley, but there is light at the end.... No more pain.... The Rock of Ages, that is my rock.' Then I read the three prayers in the Visitation Service. 'It will be over soon,' she said; 'I am going to rest.'

"'Will you give me some little word of blessing, darling?' I said. 'The Lord keep you and comfort you, my dear child,' she said. 'Don't fret too much.Hewill give you comfort.' I had begged that Mrs. Woodward would call in Lea, who was now kneeling between us at the bedside. 'And you bless poor Lea too,' I said. 'Yes, dear Lea; she has been a most good and faithful and dear servant to me. I pray that God may be with her and John, and keep them, and I hope that they will be faithful and loving to you, as they have been to me, as long as you need them.... Be reconciled to all who have been unkind to you, darling; love them all, this is my great wish, love—love—love—oh, I have tried to live for love—oh! love one another, that is the great thing—love, love, love!'

"'The Lord bless and comfort you, dear,' she said to Charlotte. 'Be a mother to my child.'—'I will,'said Charlotte, and then my darling's hand took mine and held it.

"'We look for the salvation of the Lord Jesus Christ,' said Charlotte. 'Yes, and it was here that it first dawned upon me ... through much tribulation.... He will be with me, and He will be with those who are left.'

"'We look for the King in His beauty,' said Charlotte. 'Yes, beauty such as we have never seen,' my darling said. 'Eye hath not seen nor ear heard the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him. Oh, I have been able to serve Him very little.'—'Yes, darling, but you have loved Him much.'

"'I send my love to all my dear ones in England; none are forgotten, none.' Then, after a pause, 'Tell your sister that we shall meet where there is no more controversy, and where we shall know thoroughly as we are known.'

"In the night the terrible pain came on, which lasted many hours and gave us all such anguish. 'And He bore all this,' she said, and at one of her worst moments—'He that trusteth in Thee shall never be put to confusion.' What these trembling words were to us I cannot say, with her great suffering and the sadly sunken look of her revered features. Mrs. Woodward cried bitterly.

"'Mine eyes look to the hills, from whence cometh my help,' said Charlotte when she came in. 'You have loved the Psalms so much, haven't you, dear?'—'Yes, the Psalms so much.'—'All Thy waves and storms pass over me,' said Charlotte, 'but the Rock resisteth the flood.'—'Yes, theRock,' said my darling. 'Thefloods lift up their waves, but the Lord is mightier.'—'He is mightier,' she repeated. 'The Lord is a refuge and a strong tower,' said Charlotte. 'He isindeed,' she answered with emphasis; 'it is a dark valley, but there is light beyond, for He is the strength of my heart and my portion for ever.'

"She bade me in the early morning not to leave her, and I sat by her without moving from 6A.M.till 1P.M.'Oh, you will all besotired,' she said once. When she was very ill, Charlotte leant over her and said, 'I am oppressed, O Lord, undertake for me: may the everlasting arms be beneath you.'—'Yes,' she said."

"March 1, Sunday morning.—How long it is! At 6P.M.she was very restless and suffering. At last she gave me her hand and lay down with me supporting the pillows behind. She spoke quite clearly, and said, 'My blessing and darling, may you be blessed in time and eternity!' This quiet sleep seemed to soothe and rest her, and afterwards Lea was able to take my place for an hour. But the night was terrible. Mrs. Woodward and Miss Finucane both sat up with me. Once she said, 'Through the grave and the gate of death ... a glorious resurrection.' At seven, she was speaking again, and leaning over her I heard, 'How long, how long? when will the Bridegroom come?'"

"4P.M.Monday, March 2.—A rather less suffering night. Dear Miss Garden sat up with me, saying she felt as if it was her own mother who was lying there, and Mother rambled gently to her about 'goinghome.' At 7A.M.she fell asleep sweetly with her hand clasped in both of mine. I did not venture to move, and sank from my knees into a sitting position on the floor; so we remained for nearly an hour. When she waked, her moan was more definite. 'Oh, for rest! oh, for rest!' I said, 'Darling, rest is coming soon.'—'Yes,' she said, 'my health will all come back to me soon; no infirmities and no pains any more."

"10A.M.—When Charlotte went at nine, I thought my darling sinking more rapidly, and Dr. Grilli when he came told us it was all but impossible she could rally. She looks to me at moments quite passing away. I would not call my darling back for worlds now: if God took her, I could only be lost in thankfulness that her pains were over. Oh, that she may be soon in that perfect health which we shall not be permitted to see. I scarcely leave her a moment now, though it is agony to me if she coughs or suffers. Can I afford to lose one look from those beloved eyes, one passing expression of those revered features? So I sit beside her through the long hours, now moistening her lips, now giving her water from a spoon, now and then a little soup-jelly, which she finds it easier to swallow than the soup itself, and now and then my darling gently gives me her hand to hold in mine. 'Rest in bliss,' she said to Mrs. Woodward, 'rest ever in bliss.' Afterwards Charlotte said, 'When thou passest through the waters, they shall not overflow thee: underneath thee are ... the everlasting arms."

"12½P.M.—Charlotte has repeated sentences from the Litany—'By Thine agony and bloody sweat.' Wethought she scarcely understood at first, then her lips, almost inaudibly, repeated the sentences. Soon she said, 'It issolong coming!' Then Charlotte read, 'Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord, for theyrestfrom their labours.' She opened her eyes, looked up at Charlotte, and said, 'Oh, how well I know you!'

"1P.M.—After some minutes' quiet she opened her eyes with surprise and said, 'I thought I was safe home; I thought I was, yet I can move, so I suppose it will not be yet.'

"2P.M.—Her face has lost all its troubled look, and though she still moans, there is a happy appearance of repose stealing over her features.

"3P.M.—When C. L. came in she said, 'Oh, Charlotte, I thought it was all over. I did not hear the noise of the waves any more. Oh, they were so very tormenting, and then, when I did not hear them, I thought it was over, and then I heard your voice, and I knew I was still here.... I have no more pain now.... It was very long, but I suppose He thought He would knock out all that was bad in me.'

"Midnight, Monday.—After a terrible afternoon, she had such an extraordinary rally in the evening that we all began to hope. But soon after there was another change. Her features altered, her face sunk, but her expression was of the most transcendent happiness. Thinking the last moment was come, we knelt around the bed, I alone on the right; Charlotte, Lea, and Mrs. Woodward on the left; the nurse, Angela Mayer, at the foot. Charlotte and Mrs. W. prayed aloud. Then my darling, in broken accents, difficult to understand, but which I, leaning over her, repeated to the others, began to speak—'I am going to glory ... I have no pain now ... I see the light ... Oh, I amsohappy ... no more trouble or sorrow or sin ... so extremely happy ... may you all meet me there, not one of you be wanting.'

"I, leaning over her, said, 'Do you know me still, darling?'—'Yes, I know and bless you, my dearest son ... peace and love ... glory everlasting ... all sins and infirmities purged away ... rest ... love ... glory ... reign for ever ...see Christ.

"'Oh, be ready!

"'Mary and Arthur and Kate and Emmie and Mamie, faithful servants of Christ, to meet me there in His kingdom.

"'Let peace and love remain with you always. This is my great wish, peace and love ... peace and love.'

"After saying this, my mother solemnly folded her trembling hands together on her breast, and looking up to heaven, said, 'Oh, Lord Jesus, come quickly, and may all these meet me again in Thy kingdom!' As she said this, my darling's eyes seemed fixed upon another world.

"After this I begged the others to leave me alone with her, and then my dearest one said to me, 'Yes, darling, our love for one another on earth is coming to an end now. We have loved one another very deeply. I don't know how far communion will be still possible, but I soonshallknow; and if it be possible, I shall still be always near you. I shall so love to see and know all you are doing, and to watch over you; and when you hear a little breeze go rustling by, you must think it is the old Mother still near you.... You willdo all I wish, darling, I know. I need not write, you will carry out all my wishes.'—'Yes, dearie,' I said, 'it will be my only comfort when you are gone to do all you would have wished. I will always stay at Holmhurst, darling, and I will continue going to Alton, and I will do everything else I can think of that you would like.'

"'Yes, and you must try to conquer self ... to serve God here, and then we may be together again in heaven.... Oh, wemustbe together again there.'

"Lea now came in, and my darling stroked her face while she sobbed convulsively. 'Your long work is done at last,' Mother said; 'I have been a great trouble to you both, and perhaps it is as well I should be taken away now, for I am quite worn out. Tell John and all of them that I am sorry to leave them, but perhaps it was for the best; for this is not an illness; it is that I am worn out.... You and Augustus will stay together and comfort one another when I am gone, and you will bear with one another's infirmities and help one another. The great thing of all is to be able to confess that one has been in the wrong. Oh, peace and love, peace and love, these are the great things.'

"'Have I been a good child to you, dearest?' I said. 'Oh, yes, indeed—dear and good, dear and good; a little wilful perhaps you used to be, but not lately; you have been all good to me lately—dear and good.'—('Yes, that he has,' said Lea.)—'Faithful and good,' my darling repeated, 'both of you faithful and good.'

"Charlotte now came in. 'Here is Charlotte.'—'Dear Charlotte! Oh yes, I know you. I do notknow whether there will be any communication where I am going, but if there is, I shall be very near you. I am going to rest ... rest everlasting. Be a mother to my child. Comfort him when I am gone ... give him good advice.... You know what suggestions I should make.... You will say to him what I should say ... and if he could have a good wife, that would be the best thing ... for what would you do, my child, in this lonely world?... No, a good wife, that is what I wish for you—a good wife and a family home.

"'And now I should like to speak to kind Mrs. Woodward' (she came in). 'Thank you so much; you have been very good and kind to me, dear Mrs. Woodward. I am going fast to my heavenly home. I have said all I meant to have written all the time I have been ill, and have never been able ... my mouth has been opened that I might speak.'"

"7A.M.March 3.—'Oh, it is quite beautiful. Good-bye, my own dearest! I cannot believe that you will look up into the clouds and think that I am only there ... but you will also see me in the flowers and in my friends, and in all that I have loved.'

"8A.M.—With the morning light my dearest Mother has seemed to become more rapt in holy thoughts and visions, her eyes more intently fixed on the unseen world. At last, with a look of rapture she has exclaimed, 'Oh, angels, I see angels!' and since then pain seems to have left her.

"8½A.M.—(To Lea.) 'You will take care of him and comfort him, as you have always taken care of me: you have been a dear servant to me.'—'Yes,'said Lea, 'I will always stay with him and take care of him as long as I live. I took care of your dear husband, and I have taken care of you, and I will take care of him as long as he wants me.' 'Darling sweet,' I said to her. 'Yes, darling sweet,' she repeated, with inexpressible tenderness. 'I always hear the tender words you say to me, dear, even in my dreams.' Then she said also to Mrs. Woodward, 'You have been very kind to us; you will comfort Augustus when he is left desolate: you know what sorrow is, you have gone through the valley.... It seems so much worse for others than for me.... For then I shall begin really to live.'

"All this time my darling lay with her eyes upturned and an expression of rapt beatitude. The nurse says that in her forty years' nursing she never saw any one like this, so quiet, so happy. 'Nothing ever puts her out or makes her complain: I never saw anything like it.'[368]

"8½A.M.—'It is very difficult torealisethat when you are absent from the body you are present with the Lord.'

"10A.M.—Dr. Grilli says she may live till evening, even possibly into the night. She has just said, a little wandering, 'You know in a few days some pretty sweet violets will come up, and that will be all that will be left to you of the dear Mother.'

"11½A.M.—She has taken leave of Emma Simpkinson and Miss Garden. When I came in she took my hand and said, 'And you, darling, I shall always think of you, and you will think of me. I shall spring up again like the little violets, and I shall put on an incorruptible body. I shall be always floating over you and watching over you somehow: we shall never be separated; and my body will rest beside that of my dear husband. So strange it should be here; perhaps, if it had been anywhere else, I might have wished to get better, but as it was here, the temptation was too great. I am quite worn out. I thought I could not get better after my last illness, and Iwasgiven back to you for a little while, though I have always felt very weak, but I shall be quite well now.'

"10A.M.March 4.—All night she wandered gently, saying that she would 'go out and play with the little children; for there can be nothing bad amongst very little children.' In the morning Charlotte still thought there was a chance of her rallying, but Emma Simpkinson and I both think her sinking, and Dr. Grilli says that 'sussulti tendinósi' of the pulses have come on, and that there is not the slightest hope. It can probably only be two hours, though it may last till evening. He has formally taken leave, saying that medicine is useless, and that it is no use for him to return any more. Since the early morning my darling has been lying with her hand in mine, leaning her head against mine on the pillow, her eyes turned upwards, her lips constantly moving in inarticulateprayer. She has asked, 'What day is it? I think it is my birthday to-day.' I have not told her it is her father's birthday, as I believe it will be her own birthday in heaven.

"11A.M.—She has again appeared to be at the last extremity. Raising her eyes to heaven and taking my hand, she has prayed fervently but inaudibly. Then she prayed audibly for blessings for me and Lea, and, with a grateful look to Emma, added, 'And for dear Emma too.'

"1P.M.—She wandered a little, and asked if the battle was over. 'Yes,' said Lea, 'and the victory won.'

"1½P.M.—'I am all straight now, no more crookedness.... You must do something, dear, to build yourself up; you must be a good deal pulled down by all this.... Rest now, but work, work for God in life.

"'Don't expect too much good upon earth.

"'Don't expect too much perfection in one another.

"'Work for eternity.

"'Only try for love.

"2P.M.—'Oh, how happy I am! I have everything I want here and hereafter.'

"2.10.—(With eyes uplifted and hands clasped.) ... 'Living water. The Lamb, the Lamb is the life.'

"2.15.—C. L. repeated at her request 'Abide with me, fast falls the eventide.'

"2.30.—The dear Mother herself, with her changed voice, clasped hands, and uplifted eyes, has repeated the hymn 'Just as I am, without one plea.'

"3P.M.—'I am glad I am not going to stay. I could not do you any more good, and I amsohappy.'

"4P.M.—(With intense fervour.) 'O God, O God! God alone can save—one and eternal. Amen! Amen!'

"4.15.—'Let us be one in heaven, dear, as we are one on earth.'

"4.30.—'Oh, let me go.... I have said I was ready to go so often, but you won't give me up.' I said, 'I think you had better try to sleep a little now, darling.'—'Yes, but let it be the last: I have had so many, many last sleeps.'—'You are in no pain now, dearie?' I said. 'Oh no, no pain; there is no pain on the borderland of heaven.

"'May He who ruleth all, both in heaven and earth, bless you, my child—bless you and keep you from ill. Love, love, perfect love, love on earth and then love in heaven.... I can hear words from the upper world now and none from the nearer. They have taught me things that were dark to me before.'

"5P.M.—'Peace be with you, peace and love.

"'Sin below, grace above.

"'We sinners below, Christ above.

"'All love, all truth in Jesus Christ, my Lord and my God.'

"5½P.M.—'Oh, let it be. It could not be better—no doubt, no difficulty.... All the good things of this world, what are they?... soon pass away—pride, vanity, vexation of spirit; but oh! love! love!' It was after saying these words that my darling's face became quite radiant, and that she looked upward with an expression of rapture. 'I see awhite dove,' she said, 'oh, such a beautiful white dove, floating towards me.' Soon after this she exclaimed, 'Oh, Lord Jesus, oh, come quickly'.... When she opened her eyes, 'What a wilful child you are! you will not let your mother depart, and she issoready.'—'Is it he who keeps you?' said C. L. 'No, a better One; but let me go or let me stay, O Lord, I have no will but Thine.'"[369]

"2A.M.March 5.—During the night she has prayed constantly aloud for various relations and friends by name, and often for me. Once she said, 'Ever upright, ever just, sometimes irritable, weak in temperament, that others should love him as I have done ... and a good wife, that is what I have always thought.'

"8P.M.March 5.—Twice to-day there has been a sudden sinking of nature, life almost extinct, and then, owing to the return of fever, there has been a rally. She became excited if I left her even for a moment, so through last night and to-day I have constantly sat behind her on the bed, supporting her head on a pillow in my arms.

"10P.M.—Emma Simpkinson is come for the night, but there is a strange change. My mother is asleep! quietly asleep—the fever is reduced after the aconite which I insisted upon, and which the homœopathic doctor saidmustend her life in half-an-hour.

"Friday evening, March 6.—All day there has been a rally, and she has now power to cough again. Grilli had given the case up, so at noon to-day I had no scruple in sending for Dr. Topham, writing full explanation of the strange case. He says it is the most extraordinary he has ever seen and a most interesting study—'Before such a miracle of nature, science can only sit still.' Life still hangs on a thread, but there is certainly an improvement. She knows none but me."

"Saturday evening, March 7.—What a quiet day of respite we have had after all the long tension and anxiety. My darling's face has resumed a natural expression, and she now lies quite quiet, sleeping, and only rousing herself to take nourishment."

I have copied these fragments from my journal of two terrible weeks, written upon my knees by my mother's side, when we felt every hourmustbe the last, and that her words, so difficult to recall afterwards, would be almost our only consolation when the great desolation had really fallen. But no description can give an idea of the illness—of the strange luminousness of the sunken features, such as one reads of in lives of Catholic saints—of the marvellous beauty of her expression—of the thrilling accents in which many words were spoken, from which her sensitive retiring nature wouldhave shrunk in health. Had there been physically any reason for hopefulness, which there was not—had the doctors given any hope of recovery, which they did not, her appearance, her words, her almost transfiguration would have assured us that she was on the threshold of another world. I feel that those who read must—like those who saw—almost experience a sort of shock at her being given back to us again. Yet I believe that God heard my prayer in St. Peter's for the two years more. During that time, and that time only, she was spared to bless us, and to prepare me better for the final separation when it really came. She was also spared to be my support in another great trial of my life, to which we then never looked forward. But I will return to my journal, with which ordinary events now again entwine themselves.

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