Forget-me-nots

Front matter

FORGET-ME-NOTS. BY JULIA KAVANAGH, . — AUTHOR OF "NATHALIE,'* &C. " 0 world! so few the yeax . we live, Would that the life which thou dost give Were life indeed ! Alas ! thy sorrows fall so fast, Our happiest hour is when at last The soul is freed." LONGFELLOW IN THREE VOLUMES. VOL. I. LONDON: RICHARD BENTLEY & SON. 1878. All rights reserved. CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME. Page Preface ....... t Introduction ...... ix By the AVell ...... 1 Sister Anne . . . . . .84 The Stoet op Monique .... 167 Annette's Lote-Stort .....

Preface

. m HE ensuing brief sketch will show the **■ reader the -plan Miss Kavanagh had intended to adopt to link together her short tales, and thus give to them a more general interest. They all, with few exceptions, treat of the same place, Manneville : an assumed name for a bright little spot in Normandy. The Intro duction, up to the first break, was written by Miss Kavanagh herself : the remainder has been dictated by Mrs. Kavanagh from her recollec tion of her daughter s scheme as her daughter related it to her. Had Julia Kavanagh lived,

PREFACE.

. VI no doubt this interesting fragment would have been elaborated into a long and still more interesting prologue to the Stories. It was not to be. On Sunday, the i%th of October, 1877, at five o'clock in the morning, Mrs. Kavanagh heard, in the adjoining chamber, a noise as of a heavy fall. She immediately rose from her bed, and proceeding to her daughter's room, found her upon the floor. Miss Kavanagh ex claimed in French, the language in which she usually spoke : " Oh, mamma, how silly I am to have fallen !" She was assisted back to her couch, doctors were called in, and by eight o'clock that same morning the large, beautiful eyes of Julia Kavanagh had closed in their last sleep. An aged mother, so blind as to be able only to distinguish light from darkness, was left to mourn a daughter from whom she had never been separated; a daughter whose life had been devoted to her mother, to whom she was all in all : in whom had lived as bright and pure a spirit as ever breathed.

PREFACE.

. VII The tales now given to the reader in a collected form, are the last words that will ever appear from the pure and graceful pen of the Author of " Nathalie." Hers was a noble life. Occasionally a new work would be an nounced to the world by Julia Kavanagh ; but it was known only to a few personal friends what an upright, disinterested, altogether good life was that of the writer ; full of beauty ; eloquent from its very silence ; lovely from its modest unobtrusiveness. The remains of Julia Kavanagh now rest in the cemetery of Nice. A marble memorial marks the spot, consisting of a small cairn of stones with a cross above. There is a short inscription, and a text in the French language : — " She rests from her labours, and her works do follow her." c. w. w.