XI. HOME LIFE WITH THE MOTHER

XI. HOME LIFE WITH THE MOTHER

"Golden years Of service and of hope swept over us Most sweetly. Brighter grew our home, more dear Our daily life together. And as time went by, God daily joined our hearts more perfectly."

--B. M.

"Look at a pious person, man or woman, one in whom the spirit sways the senses; look at them when they are praying or have risen from their knees, and see with how bright a ray of divine beauty their faces are illuminated: you will see the beauty of God shine on their faces: you will see the beauty of an angel. All those who in adoring humility partake of the Holy Sacraments are so united to God that the presence of the divine light is manifest upon their faces."--SAVONAROLA, Sermons.

"God's in his heaven-- All's right with the world."

--BROWNING, Pippa Passes.

When I returned from the North in the winter of 1862-63, I was shocked to find how much a failure of power, which I had faintly traced in the summer, had increased in my dearest mother. But I cannot describe the unspeakable thankfulness I felt that the work which had taken me so much away from her during her four years of health was ended just when she needed me; that it would never be absolutely necessary for me to leave her again; and I inwardly vowed never again to undertake anything which should separate me from her. Some work which might be done at home would doubtless turn up, and meanwhile I had constant employment in the service and watchings which scarcely ever permitted me to be away from her side.

Meanwhile all the sympathy which I had to spare from the sick-room at home was called forth by the suffering of my sister, who had struggled bravely under the depression of her mother's ceaseless despair and wilful refusal to be comforted, but upon whom that struggle was beginning to tell most severely. My mother allowed me to have her at Holmhurst a great deal this winter, and she was no trouble, but, on the contrary, a constant source of interest to my mother, who, while deprecating the fact of her Roman Catholicism, became full of respect for her simple faith, large-hearted charity, and reality of true religion--so different from that of most perverts from the national faith of England. In her changed fortunes, accustomed to every luxury as she had been, she would only see the silver linings of all her clouds, truly and simply responding to Thackeray's advice--

"Come wealth or want, come good or ill, Let young and old accept their part, And bow before the Awful Will, And bear it with an honest heart."

At Christmas my mother suffered terribly, and was so liable to a sudden numbness which closely threatened paralysis, that by day and night remedies had always to be prepared and at hand. In the last days of January she was moved to London, and immediately felt benefited; but the doctors who then saw my mother agreed with our old friend Dr. Hale at St. Leonards that it was absolutely necessary that she should go abroad. This gave rise to terrible anxiety. I remember how then, as on many other occasions when I was longing to stay at home, but felt certain the path of duty lay abroad, all my difficulties were enormously added to by different members of the family insisting that my mother ought to stay at home, and that I knew it, but "dragged her abroad for my own pleasure and convenience." This tenfold increased my fatigue when I was already at the last gasp, by compelling me to argue persistently to misinformed persons in favour of my convictions, against my wishes. On February 16 we left home, and went by slow stages to Hyères, whence we proceeded to Nice.

To MY SISTER.

"Pension Rivoir, Nice, March 16, 1863.--We stayed at Hyères ten days, but did not like the place at all, though it has a tropical vegetation, and there are pretty corkwoods behind it. The town is a prolonged village, clouded with dust and reeking with evil odours.... We took a vetturino from Les Arcs to Cannes, but found prices there so enormously raised, that we decided on coming on here. This place also is very full, but we like our tiny apartment, which has the sea on one side, and a beautiful view across orange-groves to the snow mountains on the other. The mother already seems not only better but--quite well! We have found a great many friends here, including Sir Adam Hay and all his family, and Lord and Lady Charles Clinton, the latter charming and most affectionately attentive to the mother."

The spring we spent at Nice is one of those I look back upon with the greatest pleasure--my mother recovered so rapidly and entirely, and was so pleased herself with her own recovery. The weather was beautiful, and as I was already in heart looking forward to drawing as the one lucrative employment which would not separate me from my mother, I devoted myself to it most enthusiastically, inwardly determined to struggle to get a power of colour which should distinguish me from the herd of sketchers and washers, and I made real progress in knowledge and delicacy. It was the greatest help to me in this, as it was the greatest pleasure in everything else, to have our dear old friend Lady Grey with her niece Miss Des Vœux settled close by us, and I constantly drew and made excursions with them, dining with them afterwards: my only difficulty being that my mother was then often left alone longer than I liked, with only Lea as a companion. During the close of our stay I had some really adventurous expeditions with Miss Des Vœux, Mrs. Robert Ellice, and Miss Ellice along the bed of the Var and up Mount Chauve and to Aspromonte; with Miss Des Vœux and the Stepneys to Carrozza and Le Broc, proceeding with the carriage as far as it would go, and then on chairs lashed upon a bullock-cart--the scenery most magnificent; and with a larger party to the glorious Peglione.

Addie Hay was often the companion of our excursions, and deeply attached himself to the mother, sitting by us for hours while we drew at Villeneuve or other mountain villages. His sister Ida did the honours at splendid parties which were given by Mr. Peabody the philanthropist, so I was invited to them. Mr. George Peabody--"Uncle George," as Americans used to call him--was one of the dullest men in the world: he had positively no gift except that of making money, and when he was making it, he never parted with a penny until he had made hundreds of thousands, and then he gave vast sums away in charity. When he had thus become quite celebrated, he went back to America, and visited his native place of Danbury, which is now called Peabody. Here some of his relations, who were quite poor people, wishing to do him honour, borrowed a silver tea service from a neighbour. He partook of their feast, and, when it was over, he looked round and said, "I am agreeably surprised to find that you are in such very good circumstances as to want nothing that I could do for you,"--and he did nothing for them.

There was, however, at least one very interesting story connected with George Peabody's life. He was going to Berlin for some important financial meeting, in which he was to take a prominent part. On the way his carriage broke down, and he was in despair as to how he was to get on, when a solitary traveller passed in a carriage and offered to take him up. Soon they began to converse. "I had a remarkably good dinner to-night," said George Peabody; "guess what it was."--"Well, I guess a good turkey."--"Better than that," said Peabody, slapping his companion on the knee. "Well, a piece of Welsh mutton."--"Better than that," with another slap; "why, I've had a prime haunch of venison from a Scotch forest." Soon they were approaching Berlin, and every one saluted the carriage as it passed. "May I ask to whom I am so much indebted for my drive?" said Peabody. "Well, guess," said his companion, as they were passing some soldiers who saluted. "Well, I guess you're a captain in the army."--"Better than that," said the stranger, slapping Peabody on the knee. "Well, perhaps you're a general."--"Better than that," with another slap. "Well, sir, I am--the Crown Prince of Prussia."

At Mr. Peabody's parties I always used to see the old King Louis of Bavaria, then a dirty dissipated old man, though Munich will ever bear witness to the great intelligence he showed in early life.

At dinner at Lady Grey's I used to meet Dr. Pantaleone, who was then practising at Nice as a Roman exile. Here are some fragments of his ever-amusing conversation:--

"What is gout, Dr. Pantaleone?"

"Why, the Clerici Canonici do say it is the divil, and the doctors do say it is the nerves, and the statesmen do say it is Lord Palmerston or Lord John Russell, as the case may be!"

"Have you studied the subject much?"

"Ah, yes! oh, it is beautiful to follow the gout. But I have felt it too, for my grandfather he did eat up all his fortune and leave us the gout, and that is what I do call cheating his heirs!"

"I have never had gout, but I have had rheumatism."

"Ah, yes; rheumatism is gout's brother."

* * *

"Why is Mr. B. in love with Miss M.?"

"Why, you see it is an ugly picture, but is beautiful encadré. She has £1500 a year--that is the cadre, and the husband will just step into the frame and throw the old picture into the shade?"

* * *

"They seem to be giving up the Bishops in Piedmont."

"Yes, but they must not do it: it is no longer wise. With us all is habit. We have now even been excommunicated for three years, and as we find we do as well or rather better than before, we do not mind a bit."

* * *

"I have often been miserable when I have lost a patient, and then I have cursed myself for wasting my time and sympathy when I have seen that the relations did not mind. It is always thus. Thus it was in that dreadful time when the Borghese lost his wife and three children. I was so grieved I could not go near the Prince. Some days afterwards I met him in the garden. 'Oh, M. le Prince,' I said, 'how I have felt for you!'--'Dr. Pantaleone,' he replied, 'if I could have them back again now I would not, for it was the will of God, and now I know that they are happy.' Then I did curse myself. 'Ah, yes, you are quite right, M. le Prince,' I said, and I did go away, and I never did offer condolences any more."

* * *

"Do you know Courmayeur?"

"Yes, that is where our King (Victor Emmanuel) goes when he wants to hunt. And when Azeglio wants the King back, he writes to his ministers, 'The tyrant wants to amuse himself,'--because his enemies do call him the tyrant."

* * *

"It is a dreadful thing not to remember. I had a friend once who married an Italian lady. One day they were at a party, and he went out in the course of the evening. Nothing was thought of it at the time; Italians often do go out. At last his wife became excited--agitated. They tried to calm her, but she thought he had poséd her there and gone away and left her for ever. She flew home, and there he was comfortably seated by his fireside. 'Oh, Tommaso, Tommaso!' she exclaimed. 'Che, che!' he said. 'Oh, why did you leave me?' she cried. 'Oh,' said he, striking his forehead, 'I did forget that I was married!'"[226]

* * *

"There was a poor woman whose son was dreadfully ill, and she wanted to get him a doctor; but somehow, instead of going for the doctor, she fell asleep, and dreamt that her son was ill, and that she was going for the doctor. She went first (in her dream) to the house of the first physician in the town, but, when she arrived, the door was crowded with a number of pale beings, who were congregating round it, and calling out to those within. So the woman asked them what they were, and they said, 'We are the spirits of those who have been killed by the treatment of this doctor, and we are come to make him our reproaches.' So the woman was horrified, and hurried away to the house of another doctor, but there she found even more souls than before; and at each house she went to, there were more and more souls who complained of the doctors who had killed them. At last she came to the house of a very poor little doctor who lived in a cottage in a very narrow dirty street, and there there were only two souls lamenting. 'Ah!' she said, 'this is the doctor for me; for while the others have killed so many, this good man in all the course of his experience has only sent two souls out of the world.' So she went in and said, 'Sir, I have come to you because of your experience, because of your great and just reputation, to ask you to heal my son.' As she talked of his great reputation the doctor looked rather surprised, and at last he said, 'Well, madam, it is very flattering, but it is odd that you should have heard so much of me, for I have only been a doctor a week.' Ah! then you may imagine what the horror of the woman was--he had only been a doctor a week, and yet he had killed two persons!... So she awoke, and she did not go for a doctor at all, and her son got perfectly well."

In May we went to spend a week at Mentone, seeing old haunts and old friends; thence also I went for three days with Lady Grey to S. Remo, where we drew a great deal, but I did not then greatly admire S. Remo. We stayed a few days at Arles, where M. and Madame Pinus, the landlord of the Hôtel du Nord and his wife, had become quite intimate friends by dint of repeated visits. Each time we stayed at Arles we made some delightful excursion: this time we went to S. Gilles. Then by a lingering journey, after our fashion of the mother's well-days, loitering to see Valence and Rochemaure, we reached Geneva, where we had much kindly hospitality from the family of the Swiss pasteur Vaucher, with whose charming daughter we had become great friends at Mentone two years before. We were afterwards very happy for a fortnight in the pleasant Pension Baumgarten at Thun, and went in einspanners in glorious weather to Lauterbrunnen and Grindelwald. On our way north, we lingered at Troyes, and I also made a most interesting excursion from Abbeville to St. Riquier and the battlefield of Crecy, where the old tower from which Edward III. watched the battle still stood,[229] and the cross where the blind King of Bohemia fell amid the corn-lands.

It was the 9th of June when we reached Holmhurst, and on the 15th I went to Arthur Stanley's house at Oxford for the Commemoration, at which the lately married Prince and Princess of Wales were present, she charming all who met her as much by her simplicity as by her grace and loveliness. "No more fascinating and lovely creature," said Arthur, "ever appeared in a fairy-story." Mrs. Gladstone was at the Canonry and made herself very pleasant to everybody. "Your Princess is so lovely, it is quite a pleasure to be in the room with her," I heard her say to the Prince of Wales. "Yes, she really is very pretty," he replied.

Afterwards I went to stay with Miss Boyle, who had lately been "revived," and it was a most curious visit. Beautiful still, but very odd, she often made one think of old Lady Stuart de Rothesay's description of her--"Fille de Vénus et de Polichinelle."

To MY MOTHER.

"Portishead, June 27, 1863.--Miss Boyle is quite brimming with religion, and, as I expected, entirely engrossed by her works. She preaches now almost every night. She began a sort of convertive talking instantly. She asked at once, 'Are you saved?' &c. She seems to have in everything 'une grande liberté avec Dieu,' as Madame de Glapion said to Madame de Maintenon. She thinks Arthur an infidel, and said that there had been a meeting of six thousand people at Bristol to pray that his influence at Court may be counteracted. Speaking of this, on the spur of the moment she had up the servants and prayed for 'our poor Queen, who is in ignorance of all these things.' Then, at great length, for me, 'Thy child and servant who is just come into this house.' She said she had put off her meeting for the next day on my account, but I begged that she would hold it, even though the bills were not sent out.

"On Friday she did not appear till one. We dined at three, and then an 'Evangelist' came in, who also asked at once 'if I was saved?' and then knelt down and made a long prayer, 'O God, I thank Thee that I am a saved sinner,' with a sort of litany of 'Yes, bless the Lord,' from Miss Boyle. Then I was prayed for again: it felt very odd.

"Then we went off in a fly, with one of the maids and another Evangelist called Mr. Grub, a long drive through a series of country lanes to solitary farmhouses amongst the hills. It was like the description in 'The Minister's Wooing.' At one of the houses a young woman came out and said to me that she 'hoped we were one in Christ.'

"From a turn of the road I walked down to Pill, the rude town on the Avon where Miss Boyle preaches almost every evening to the wharfingers and sailors, nearly two hundred at a time. I saw her pulpit in the open air close to the river, with the broad reaches of the Channel and ships sailing in behind it. When she preaches there it must be a very striking scene. Numbers of people crowded round to ask--'Isna Lady Boyle a cooming down?'--and all the little children, 'Is Lady Boyle a cooming? Tell us, Mister, where's Lady Boyle?'

"When we returned to the other village, St. George's, Miss Boyle and her maid were sitting on a well in an old farmhouse garden, singing beautiful revival hymns to a troop of mothers and little children, who listened with delight. As the crowd gathered, she came down, and standing with her back against the fly, beneath some old trees in the little market-place, addressed the people. Then Miss Boyle prayed; then the Evangelist preached. Then came some revival hymns from Dick Weaver's hymn-book. The people joined eagerly, and the singing was lovely--wild, picturesque choruses, constantly swelled by new groups dropping in. People came up the little lanes and alleys, listening and singing. Great waggons and luggage-vans passing on the highroad kept stopping, and the carters and drivers joined in the song. At last Miss Boyle herself preached--most strikingly, and her voice, like a clarion, must have been audible all over the village. She preached on the ten lepers, and words never seemed to fail her, but she poured out an unceasing stream of eloquence, entreating, warning, exhorting, comforting, and illustrating by anecdotes she had heard and from the experiences of her own life. The people listened in rapt attention, but towards the end of her discourse a quantity of guns and crackers were let off close by by agents of a hostile clergyman (Vicar of Portbury), and a fiddle interrupted the soft cadences of the singing. On this she prayed aloud for 'the poor unconverted clergyman, that God would forgive him,' but when she had done, the people sang one of Weaver's hymns, 'He is hurrying--he is hurrying--he is hurrying down to hell.' Some of the clergy uphold her, others oppose. She has had a regular fight with this one. The meeting was not over till past nine; sometimes it lasts till eleven. The people did not seem a bit tired: I was, and very cold."

I seldom after this saw my old friend, Miss Boyle. I could not press her coming to Holmhurst, because she forewarned me that, if she came, she must hold meetings in the village. A sister of John Bright declared, "I always agree with my old gardener, who says 'I canna abide a crowing hen';" and latterly I have been of much the same opinion.

We left home again for Italy on the 26th of October. In those days there was no railway across the Mont Cenis, but my mother enjoyed the vetturino journey along the roads fringed with barberries. Beyond this, travelling became difficult, owing to the floods. At Piacenza we were all ejected from the train, and forced to walk along the line for a great distance, and then to cross a ford, which made me most thankful that my mother was tolerably well at the time.

JOURNAL.

"Nov. 7, 1863.--We left Bologna at 5 A.M. In the journey to Vergato the colouring was beautiful, the amber and ruby tints of autumn melting into a sapphire distance. At Vergato we engaged the coupé of the diligence, and had a pleasant passage over the Apennines, sometimes with four, sometimes with seven horses in the ascent. The richness of the autumnal glory was beyond description--a tossing torrent, rocky moss-grown forests of old oaks and chestnuts, their leaves golden in death: here and there thickets of holly and box: an old castle on a rock: a lonely old town (La Porretta) in a misty hollow: and then a grand view from the top of the pass over purple billowy mountains. The scenery becomes suddenly Italian--perfectly Italian--in the descent, cypresses and stone-pines, villas and towers, cutting the sky and relieved upon the delicate distance: and in the depth Pistoia, lying like a map, with dome and towers like a miniature Florence."

At the station of Ficulle near Orvieto, where the railway to the south came to an end altogether at that time, the floods were out all over the country, and there were no carriages--everything being quite disorganised. We arrived at a miserable little station, scarcely better than a small open shed, in torrents of rain, at twelve o'clock in the day, and had to wait till the same hour of the day following, when carriages would arrive from Orvieto. After some time my mother was conveyed to a wretched little inn, but it was necessary for some one to remain to guard the luggage, and knowing what a fearful hardship it would be considered by our cross-grained man-servant, John Gidman, I remained sitting upon it, without any food except a few biscuits, in pitch darkness at night, and with the swelching rain beating upon my miserable shed, for twenty-four hours. It was a very unpleasant experience.

When at length we got away, we had to take the road by Montefiascone and Viterbo, which was then almost untravelled, and the postboys took advantage of the utter loneliness of the road and disturbed state of the country to be most insolent in their demands for money. Sometimes they would stop altogether in a desolate valley and refuse to let their horses go an inch farther unless we paid a sort of ransom. On such occasions we always took out our books and employed ourselves till they went on from sheer weariness. We were never conquered, but it made the journey very anxious and fatiguing.

It was with real thankfulness that we reached Rome on November 12, and engaged the upper apartment of 31 Piazza di Spagna, our landlady being the pleasant daughter of Knebel the artist, who lived in some little rooms above us, with her brother Tito and her nurse Samuccia.

The first days at Rome this winter were absolute Elysium--the sitting for hours in the depth of the Forum, then picturesque, flowery, and "unrestored," watching the sunlight first kiss the edge of the columns and then bathe them with gold: the wanderings with different friends over the old mysterious churches on the Aventine and Cœlian, and the finding out and analysing all their histories from different books at home in the evenings: the very drives between the high walls, watching the different effects of light on the broken tufa stones, and the pellitory and maiden-hair growing between them.

We were also especially fortunate this winter in our friends. At first I much enjoyed very long walks with a Mr.[232] and Mrs. Kershaw, who lived beneath us. Taking little carriages to the gates, we wandered forth to the Aqueducts and Roma Vecchia, where we spent the day in drawing and picking up marbles, not returning till the cold night-dews were creeping up from the valleys, and the peasants, as we reached the crowded street near the Theatre of Marcellus, were eating their fritture and chestnuts by lamplight, amid a jargon of harsh tongues and gathering of strange costumes.

We saw much of the handsome young Marchese Annibale Paolucci di Calboli, in the Guardia Nobile, whose wife was an old friend of early Hurstmonceaux days, and whose children, especially the second son, Raniero, have always remained friends of mine. This is the family mentioned by Dante in "Purgatorio," xiv.--

"Questo è il Rinier; quest' è il pregio e l'onore Della casa da Calboli."

Old Lady Wenlock[233] came to the Hôtel Europa close beside us, and was a constant pleasure. My mother drove with her frequently. She scarcely ever said anything that was not worth observing, and her reminiscences were of the most various kinds. She it was who, by telling my mother of her own strong wish and that of other people to possess some of my sketches, first suggested the idea of selling my drawings. We amused ourselves one evening by putting prices on the backs of sketches of the winter--highly imaginative prices, as it seemed to us. Some time afterwards Lady Wenlock had a party, and asked for the loan of my portfolio to show to her friends: when they came back there were orders to the amount of £60.

Other friends of whom we saw much this winter were old Lady Selina Bridgeman, sister of my mother's dear friend Lady Frances Higginson; and Lord and Lady Hobart. Lord Hobart was afterwards Governor of Madras, but at this time he was excessively poor, and they lived in a tiny attic apartment in the Via Sistina. At many houses we met the long-haired Franz Liszt, the famous composer, and heard him play. Mr. and Mrs. Archer Houblon also were people we liked, and we were drawn very near to them by our common interest in the news which reached us just after our arrival in Rome of the engagement of Arthur Stanley, just after his appointment to the Deanery of Westminster, to Lady Augusta Bruce (first cousin of Mrs. Houblon), the person whom his mother had mentioned as the one she would most like him to marry.

A little before Christmas--a Christmas of the old kind, with a grand Papal benediction from the altar of St. Peter's--Henry Alford, Dean of Canterbury, and his family came to Rome. With them I went many delightful expeditions into the distant Campagna: to Ostia, with its then still gorgeous marbles and melancholy tower and pine; to Castel Fusano, with its palace, like that of the Sleeping Beauty, rising lovely from its green lawns, with its pine avenue and decaying vases with golden-flowered aloes, and beyond all the grand old forest with its deep green recesses and gigantic pines and bays and ilexes, its deep still pools and its abysses of wood, bounded on one side by the Campagna, and on the other by the sea; to Collatia, with its woods of violets and anemones, and its purling brook and broken tower; to Cerbara, with its colossal caves and violet banks, and laurustinus waving like angels' wings through the great rifts; to Veii, with its long circuit of ruins, its tunnelled Ponte Sodo and its mysterious columbarium and tomb. Another excursion also lives in my mind, which I took with Harry and Albert Brassey, when we went out very early to Frascati, and climbed in the gorgeous early morning to Tusculum, where the little crocuses were just opening upon the dew-laden turf, and then made our way across hedge and ditch to Grotta Ferrata and its frescoes.

I have always found--at Rome especially--that the pleasantest way is to see very little, and to enjoy that thoroughly. "Je n'avale pas les plaisirs, je sais les goûter."

In the spring our sketchings and excursions were frequently shared by our cousins, Maria and Mary Shaw-Lefevre, who came to Rome with their maternal aunt, Miss Wright, whom I then saw for the first time, but who afterwards became the dearest of my friends--a nominal "Aunt Sophy," far kinder and far more beloved than any real aunt I have ever known.

But most of all does my remembrance linger upon the many quiet hours spent alone with the mother during this winter, of an increasing communion with her upon all subjects, in which she then, being in perfect health, was able to take an active and energetic interest.

Especially do I look back to each Sunday afternoon passed in the Medici Gardens, where she would sit on the sheltered sunny seats backed by the great box hedges--afternoons when her gentle presence, when the very thought of her loved existence, made all things sweet and beautiful to me, recalling Cowper's lines--

"When one that holds communion with the skies Has filled her urn where these pure waters rise, And once more mingles with us meaner things, 'Tis e'en as if an angel shook his wings; Immortal fragrance fills the circuit wide, And tells us whence her treasures are supplied."

These afternoons with the mother are my real Roman memories of 1863-64--not the hot rooms, not the evening crowds, not the ceremonies at St. Peter's!

This year I greatly wished something that was not compatible with the entire devotion of my time and life to my mother. Therefore I smothered the wish, and the hope that had grown up with it. Those things do not--cannot--recur.

One day in the spring, mother and I drove to our favourite spot of the Acqua Acetosa, and walked in the sun by the muddy Tiber. When we came back, we found news that Aunt Esther was dead. She had never recovered a violent cold which she caught when lying for hours, in pouring rain, upon her husband's grave. Her death was characteristic of her life, for, with the strongest sense of duty and a determination to carry it out to the uttermost, no mental constitution can possibly be imagined more happily constructed for self-torment than hers. My mother grieved for her loss, and I grieved that my darling had sorrow.... How many years of heartburnings and privation are buried for ever out of sight in that grave! Requiescat in pace. I believe that I have entirely forgiven all the years of bitter suffering that she caused me. "He who cannot forgive others, breaks the bridge over which he must pass himself: for every man hath need to be forgiven," was a dictum of Lord Herbert of Cherbury. I believe that I really feel this; still "les morts se prétent aux réconciliations avec une extrême facilité," as Anatole France says.[236]

We did not go to many of the services. The most impressive processions we saw were really those of the bare-footed monks who followed the funerals, many hundreds of them, each with his lighted candle: we used to hear their howling chant long before they turned the corner of the Piazza di Spagna.

To MY SISTER.

"31 Piazza di Spagna, Rome, Feb. 1864.--Manning is indefatigable in proselytising. I once went to hear him preach at San Carlo: anything so dull, so wholly unimpassioned, I never heard. There was a great function at the Minerva the other day as a protest against Renan. Michelangelo's statue of Christ was raised aloft and illuminated. A Dominican friar preached, and in the midst of his sermon shouted, 'Adesso, fratelli miei, una viva per Gesù Cristo!' and all the congregation shouted 'Viva.' And when he finished, he cried 'Adesso tre volte viva per Gesù Cristo!' and when they were given, 'E una viva di più,' just as if it were a toast. The Bambino of Ara Cœli has broken its toe! It was so angry at the church door being shut when it returned from its drive, that it kicked the door till one of its toes came off, and the monks are in sad disgrace.

"The old Palace of the Cæsars, as we have always called it, is being superseded by immense scavi, opened by the French Emperor in the Orti Farnesiani: these have laid bare such quantities of old buildings and pavements, that the Orti are now like a little Pompeii."

We left Rome before Easter, and spent it quietly at Albano, where we had many delightful days, with first the Hobarts and then the Leghs of Booths in our hotel, and I made charming excursions up Monte Cavi and round the lake of Nemi with Alexander Buchanan and the Brasseys. On Good Friday there was a magnificent procession, the dead and bleeding Christ carried by night through the streets upon a bier, preceded and attended by monks and mutes with flaming torches, and followed by a wailing multitude. In the principal square the procession stopped, the bier was raised aloft, and while the torchlight flamed upon the livid features of the dead, a monk called upon the people to bear witness and to account for his "murder."

At Sorrento we spent a fortnight at the Villa Nardi, with its quiet orange-grove and little garden edged with ancient busts overlooking the sea. At Amalfi, the Alfords joined us. We went together to Ravello. I remember how the Dean insisted on calling the little dog that went with us from the inn "Orthodog," and another dog, which chose to join our company, "Heterodog," on the principle of Dr. Johnson, who explained the distinction by saying, "Madam, orthodoxy is my doxy, and heterodoxy is any other person's doxy."

As we returned through Rome we stayed at the Palazzo Parisani, and much enjoyed the luxury of the large cool rooms, where we lived chiefly on riccotta and lettices. One day as we came in, the porter gave us a black-edged letter. It was the news that poor "Italima" was released from all her sorrows. For my sister, to whom Madame de Trafford had written exactly foretelling what was going to happen, one could only give thanks (though she truly mourned her mother); but it was strangely solemnising receiving the news in "Italima's" own rooms, where we had seen her in her utmost prosperity. It was a fortnight before Esmeralda could send us any details.

"34 Bryanston Street, May 9, 1864.--Your long-expected letter came this morning. I had been waiting for it every day, every hour. The illness was so short, and the sense of desolation so terrible afterwards, it seems strange to have lived. On the Thursday the nuns of the Precious Blood came to dinner, and were alarmed by seeing a change in Mama. She talked cheerfully to them, but when I left the room, she said to the Superior, 'I am really ill,' but this was not told me till afterwards. I sent for Dr. Bell. He said at once, 'It is bronchitis, but there is no danger, nothing to be feared.' On Friday, Mama was up as early as usual. Father Galway came to see her, also Lady Lothian. Mama was cheerful, and they saw no cause for anxiety. Every hour made me more anxious. Mama kept saying, 'Esmeralda, you cannot keep quiet, what is the matter with you? I am not ill.' On Saturday I thought Mama worse, and more so on Sunday, though she got up and came downstairs. Lady Lothian came at two o'clock, then Father Galway. Mama talked to Father Galway about her past life, and seemed quite cheerful. She sat up till nine o'clock. When Mama was in bed, she said, 'I am better, I think; go to bed, you are so tired, and do not get up again.' I went to my room and wrote a letter to Father Galway, as I dreaded that a change might take place in the night, and wished that the letter might be ready to send. I went to Mama several times.... It was at two o'clock that she laid her hand upon my head and said, with a great effort, 'Esmeralda, I am going from you.' ... In a few minutes she began to say the Gloria. I repeated the Belief, the Our Father, and the Hail Mary.... Soon after five o'clock Father Galway was here, and then Lady Lothian came with a nun of the Misericorde as a nurse. Mama was then better, and seemed surprised to see Father Galway. I remained praying in the next room with the nun and Lady Lothian. At seven, I went in to Mama. She did not then believe she was dying, but said she was ready to make her last confession. The nuns of the Precious Blood had brought the relic of the True Cross. At a quarter past eight o'clock Father Galway had heard Mama's confession; he then said she must be raised before she could receive the Last Sacraments. We all went into the room. Lady Lothian made every effort to raise Mama. She stood on the bed, and tried to raise her; it was no use; we all tried in turn. The nun of the Misericorde suggested raising Mama on sheets. It must have been dreadful agony. There were a few deep moans, but at last the nuns and Lady Lothian did raise Mama. Then she received Extreme Unction; the nuns, Lady Lothian, and I kneeling around. Father Galway approached the bed, and said to Mama that she was going to receive the Body and Blood of our Lord--'Could she swallow still?' She said 'Yes' audibly. She fixed her eyes on Father Galway; her face was for the instant lighted up with intensity of love and faith. There was a pause. Her breathing had in that moment become more difficult. Father Galway said a second time the same words, and again, with a great effort, Mama said 'Yes.' She then received the Holy Viaticum, and in that solemn moment her eyes opened wide, and a beautiful calm peaceful look came over her countenance,--and this calm look never left her through all the long hours till half-past three o'clock, when she breathed her last. When she was asked anything, she always answered, 'Pray, pray.' Once she opened her eyes wide, and with a long parting look said, 'Do not worry,'--she passed her hand over my head: she liked to see me kneeling by her side.

"Francis did not arrive till Mama had received the Last Sacraments. I met him on the stairs, and said, 'Francis, you are too late.' He staggered against the wall, and with a cry of agony exclaimed, 'It is impossible.' Father Galway was then saying the prayers of the agonising, the responses being taken up by the nuns and Lady Lothian. Lady Williamson and Lady Georgina Fullerton had also arrived, but I do not think Mama knew them. At two o'clock Mama asked for Lady Lothian, for she always missed her when she left the room and asked for her back again, asked her to pray, and tried hard to say something to her about me. I led Francis into the room, and Lady Lothian said to Mama, 'Francis, you remember Francis,' and Mama said 'Yes,' and then she blessed him. Francis buried his head in his hands, his whole frame quivering with sobbing. Mama fixed her eyes on him with a kind parting look, and then closed them again. Lady Lothian then said, 'William' (for he and Edith had come), and Mama said 'Yes,' and she opened her eyes again and blessed William. Father Galway at intervals took up the prayers for the dying,--and then, at last, while Francis, William, Auntie, and Lady Lothian were kneeling at the foot of the bed, and the nuns supporting Mama, the words were heard--'Go forth.' There was a slight, hardly audible, rattle in Mama's throat. Father Galway turned round to me, and said, 'Now you can help her more than you did before,' and began the prayers for the dead--the five joyful mysteries of the Rosary. The overpowering awe of that solemn moment prevented any outburst of grief; a soul had in that instant been judged. For long I had prayed that Mama might make a good death, and this prayer was answered. All Father Galway's devotion before and afterwards to each and all of us,--all Lady Lothian's untiring kindness, I can never tell you, it was so beautiful. Then came long days of watching by the body. The nuns of the Precious Blood sent their large crucifix and their high silver candlesticks; the room was hung in black and white. Auntie is sadly altered, but always patient and self-sacrificing. I was with Lady Lothian a week; how that week went by I cannot tell, and now there are lawyers. I long for rest. There is such a blank, such a loneliness. I like to be alone with our Blessed Lord, and to shut out the world."

"May 18.--Probably I have told you everything up to the time of the death, three weeks last Monday, and still I can hardly realise it. Those last hours are so vivid. My thoughts are going back. Was there anything that could have been done that was not done to save Mama's life? was there anything she wished for that was not done? because her breathing was so difficult she could only articulate the shortest words. There was one sentence she tried to say to Lady Lothian, and over and over again she began it with such an anxious look that Lady Lothian should understand it, but it was impossible. It began with Es ... da, and ended with her, but the intermediate words were lost.

"After all was over, Lady Lothian took me by the hand and led me gently to the sofa in the other room. After some time the nun of the Miséricorde fetched me into the room of death, and we began to light torches round the bed, and watch those dear remains, and there we watched and prayed for the dead for long, long hours. I ordered a person to watch from eleven at night until the morning, when the nun of the Miséricorde went in. She had been resting in my bedroom next door, and we had been taking up alternately, in the stillness of the night, the prayers for dear Mama. Then began the watching through the day. The Abbé de Tourzel, Father Galway, William, Edith, Lady Lothian, and Lady G. Fullerton came in turn to watch, and so the day passed, and the night, and Tuesday. On Tuesday evening Francis came up. The whole room had been transformed. When he entered the door, he stopped and looked around, then he went round the bed, stooped over Mama, and said, 'Oh sister, Mama does not look dead,' then he sat down, buried his head in his hands, and there he remained for an hour and a half without moving. And then he left, and others came and joined in the Rosary and Litany for the dead, and then came the second night, and on Wednesday there were watchers through the day. On Wednesday I first felt the great fatigue, but that day also passed praying and watching. The next day Lady G. Fullerton came and took me to her house while those dear remains were laid in the coffin. In the evening the nun who was watching would not let me see Mama again, but I got up early the following morning and went into the room, and I cannot tell you what the agony of that moment was:--I became senseless and was carried out. The coffin was closed and stood in the middle of the room, which looked like a chapel. The crucifix stood at the head of the coffin, huge silver candlesticks near and around,--the room draped in black and white, and a bouquet of fresh flowers at the head of the coffin. Watchers succeeded each other, Miss Turville several times, Mrs. Galton, and so through Thursday and Friday. On Friday evening Lady Lothian took me away.

"The body was carried to the church at Farm Street at half-past eight on Friday evening, as it was my wish that it should remain before the Blessed Sacrament throughout the night. Low Masses commenced at seven o'clock, at which time persons began to assemble. At ten o'clock were the Requiem and High Mass. The coffin was placed on a catafalque in front of the high altar, surrounded by burning tapers. Francis was on the right, William on the left, the four nuns at the foot, Lady Williamson, Lady Hardwicke, Sir Hedworth, Lord Normanby, Col. Augustus Liddell, Victor Williamson, and many others, stood near them. The chapel was full, the wailing chant very impressive. There was one person, an old man tottering with grief, whom every one saw, and every one inquired who he was. At eleven o'clock six bearers came up the centre of the church, and slowly the coffin was carried out. The family followed. Lady Lothian came out of one of the seats and implored me not to follow to the cemetery. The crowd closed in behind the coffin. Lady Lothian and I remained in the church; after a time we returned to her house. Everything appeared indistinct from that time. Now William will tell the rest.

(Continued by William.)--"The four carriages started along the road; by the side ran the weather-beaten white-haired gentleman, and every one still inquired who he was. We reached Kensal Green at half-past one. The coffin was carried into the chapel, and laid upon another catafalque, where it was asperged. After a very impressive oration by Father Galway, the procession left the chapel headed by the four nuns. Then came the priests, then all the others following the coffin, and last of all the white-haired unknown. As the coffin was lowered, the responses were chanted by the nuns, and at the same time a gleam of sunshine burst forth, being the only one that appeared, throwing a strong light over everything.

"That day the nuns and Father Galway went to see my sister, who was terribly exhausted. On Monday morning the white-haired unknown came to Bryanston Street and asked for Miss Hare. He was sent on to Lady Lothian. Sister was alone (now she dictates the rest).--The door opened, and as I looked, I saw a white-haired old man, who seemed almost as if he had not strength to come forward. I went up to him. Tears were streaming down his face; he clasped my hands in his, and exclaimed, 'Ah! Mademoiselle!' and his sobs choked him and prevented him from saying any more, and I, in my turn, exclaimed, 'Oh! Lamarre, c'est vous!' It was indeed Lamarre, our old cook from Palazzo Parisani! His was the most touching sorrow I ever saw. 'Celle que j'ai servi, celle que j'ai véneré pendant tant d'années, j'ai voulu lui rendre ce dernier homage de mon devoir. J'ai respecté votre douleur dans l'église, et j'ai suivi le cortège à pied jusqu'au cimetière. J'ai desiré voir la fin.' As Lamarre leaned over me, he was trembling from head to foot. I made him sit down by the fireside, and then we talked more calmly. Only when he spoke of Victoire and her terrible grief, all his sorrow burst out again, and large tears trickled down his cheeks. It was such a sad parting when he went. But I was comforted in feeling how Mama had been loved, how much she had been esteemed in her life, how many there were who were deeply attached to her, who felt the sorrow as I felt it. Then came the days of long letters of condolence from France, from Italy, from Pisa, from Victoire, whose heart seemed breaking, and where the funeral mass was said with great pomp, sixty of the Pisan clergy attending, who sent me a list of their names. At Rome the Duchess Sora will have a funeral mass said at San Claudio, and all the clergy and friends who knew Mama well will be present to offer up their prayers."

According to Roman custom, the death was announced to acquaintances by a deep mourning paper inscribed:--

"_Have pity on me, have pity on me, at least you, my friends_."--JOB xix. 21.

Of your charity pray for the soul of

MRS. ANN FRANCES HARE,

(Widow of Francis George Hare, Esq., brother of the late Archdeacon Hare of Lewes, Sussex), who departed this life, after a short illness, on the 25th of April 1864, aged sixty-three years, fortified with all the rites of Holy Church. On whose soul sweet Jesus have mercy.

* * *

Requiescat in pace. Amen.

* * *

"Afflicted in few things, in many shall they be well rewarded, because God has tried them."--Wisdom, iii. 5.[238]

It was Mr. Trafford who responded to the announcement of the death which had been sent to Madame de Trafford:--

"Château le Beaujour, par Onzain, Cher et Loire, ce 1 Mai 1864.--Croyez, ma chère Demoiselle, que nous partageons bien votre douleur, mais femme propose, et Dieu dispose. Vous savez que Madame de Trafford avait prévu ce qui est arrivé.... Madame de Trafford vous dira encore 'Espérance et Confiance.'

"E. W. TRAFFORD."

TO MY SISTER.

"Florence, May 22, 1864.--This morning we have received your most touching account of the last hours, of which we had so longed to know something. You may imagine with what breathless interest we have followed every detail.

" ... I have seen poor Mr. Landor several times. He has a small lodging in the Via della Chiesa, where he 'sits out the grey remainder of his evening,' as Coleridge would describe it. He is terribly altered, has lost the use of his hearing and almost of his speech, and cannot move from his chair to his bed. I think he had a very indistinct recollection who I was, but he remembered the family, and liked to say over the old names--'Francis, Augustus, Julius, I miei tre imperatori. I have never known any family I loved so much as yours. I loved Francis most, then Julius, then Augustus, but I loved them all. Francis was the dearest friend I ever had.' He also spoke of the Buller catastrophe. 'It was a great, great grief to me.' I did not tell him what has happened lately; it was no use, he can live so short a time.[239]

"When he last left the Villa Landore, it was because Mrs. Landor turned him out by main force. It was a burning day, a torrid summer sun. He walked on dazed down the dusty road, the sun beating on his head. His life probably was saved by his meeting Mr. Browning, who took him home. After some time, Browning asked to take him to the Storys' villa at Siena, and he stayed with them a long time. Mrs. Story says that nothing ever more completely realised King Lear than his appearance when he arrived, with his long flowing white locks and his wild far-away expression. But after a day of rest he seemed to revive. He would get up very early and sit for hours at a little table in the great hall of the villa writing verses--often Latin verses.

"One day he wrote, and thundered out, an epigram on his wife:--

'From the first Paradise an angel once drove Adam; From mine a fiend expelled me: Thank you, madam.'

"Then he would tell the Storys interesting things out of his long-ago, describing Count D'Orsay and Lady Blessington, with Disraeli sitting silently watching their conversation, as if it were a display of fireworks. He was always courteous and kind--a polished gentleman of the old school. At last Browning arranged for him to go to a lodging of his own, but he went to spend their little girl's birthday with the Storys. He walked to their villa along the dusty road in his old coat, but when he came in, he unbuttoned it, and with one of his old volleys of laughter showed a flowered waistcoat, very grand, which 'D'Orsay and he had ordered together,' and which he had put on in honour of the occasion.

"After he was living in Florence, Mrs. Browning told him one day that she had just got Lord Lytton's new book 'Lucile.'--'Oh, God bless my soul!' he said, 'do lend it to me.' In an hour he sent it back. 'Who could ever read a poem which began with But?' However, he was afterwards persuaded to read it, and shouted, as he generally did over what pleased him, 'Why, God bless my soul, it's the finest thing I ever read in my life.'

"Mrs. Browning did not think he was properly looked after at Florence, and sent her excellent maid, Wilson, to care for him. But it did not answer. Wilson cooked him a most excellent little dinner, and when he saw it on the table, he threw it all out of the window; it was too English, he said."

In returning north from Italy, we made an excursion to Courmayeur, driving in a tiny carriage from Ivrea along the lovely Val d'Aosta, and lingering to sketch at all the beautiful points. In France we had an especially happy day at Tonnerre, a thoroughly charming old town, where the people were employed in gathering the delicious lime-flowers which lined the boulevards, for drying to make tisanes.

There was a subject of painful interest to us during this summer, which it is difficult to explain in a few words. My sister's letter mentions how, when Italima was dying, there was one thing which she tried over and over again to say to the Dowager Lady Lothian, who was with her, and which Lady Lothian and the other bystanders vainly endeavoured to understand. It began with "Esmeralda" and ended with "her," but the intermediate words were lost. We naturally explained it to mean "Esmeralda will be very desolate when I am gone; you will look after her."

After Italima's death, Esmeralda had moved from Bryanston Street to a house in Duke Street, Manchester Square, which was kept by Mrs. Thorpe, the faithful and devoted maid of Italima's old friend Mrs. Chambers. Here my sister had every comfort, and might have had rest, but one day her brother William came to visit her, and broke a blood-vessel while he was in the house. His wife was sent for, and for several weeks he hovered between life and death; indeed, he never really recovered from this attack, though he was able to be moved in a month and lived for more than three years. The fatigue of her brother's illness entirely prostrated Esmeralda, who was already terribly shaken in health by the fatigue of the strange watchings, enjoined by Catholicism, which followed her mother's death.

It was about August that I received a letter from my Aunt Eleanor Paul begging me to come to London immediately, for something most extraordinary and trying had happened. When I went, I found my sister looking terribly ill, and my aunt greatly agitated. My aunt said that two days before Mrs. Beckwith had been to visit my sister; that, supposing she was come to talk of Catholic matters, she had not paid any especial attention to what they were saying, and, owing to her deafness, she consequently heard nothing. That she was suddenly startled by a scream from my sister, and looking up, saw her standing greatly excited, and Mrs. Beckwith trying to soothe her; that she still supposed it was some Catholic news which had agitated my sister, and that consequently she made no inquiries.

The next day, Esmeralda went out to drive with Mrs. Beckwith, and when she came back she looked dreadfully harassed and altered, so much so that at last my aunt said, "Now, Esmeralda, I am quite sure something has happened. I stand in the place of a mother to you now, and I insist upon knowing what it is."

Then my sister said that Mrs. Beckwith had startled her the day before by saying that, as she had been walking down Brook Street, Madame de Trafford had suddenly appeared before her, and, looking back upon all the events connected with the past appearances of Madame de Trafford, the news was naturally a shock to her. After driving with Mrs. Beckwith, she had returned with her to her hotel, and while she was there the door suddenly opened, and Madame de Trafford came in.

The malady from which Esmeralda had been suffering was an extraordinary feeling, a sensation of burning in her fingers. The doctor whom she had consulted, when this sensation became so acute as to prevent her sleeping, said it arose from an overwrought state of nerves, possibly combined with some strain she might have received while helping to move furniture to turn the room into a chapel, after her mother's death. When Madame de Trafford came into the room at the hotel, my sister instantly, as usual, jumped up to embrace her, but Madame de Trafford put out her hands and warded her off with a gesture of horror, exclaiming, "Ne me touchez pas, ma chère, je vous en supplie ne me touchez pas: c'est vos doigts qui sont en feu. Ah! ne me touchez pas." And then she became terribly transfigured--the voice of prophecy came upon her, and she said, "When your mother was dying, there was something she tried to say to Lady Lothian, which you none of you were able to hear or understand. I, in my château of Beaujour in Touraine, I heard it. It echoed through and through me. It echoes through me still. For three months I have struggled day and night not to be forced to tell you what it was, but I can struggle no longer; I am compelled to come here; I am forced away from Beaujour; I am forced to England against my will. When your mother was dying she saw the future, and said, 'Esmeralda will soon follow me: I shall not long be separated from her.' And you will follow her," shrieked Madame de Trafford, her eyes flaming, and every nerve quivering with passion. "You will follow her very soon. Only one thing could save you: if you were to go to Rome before the winter, that might save your life; but if not, you must--die!" And then Madame de Trafford, sinking down suddenly into an ordinary uninspired old woman, began to cry; she cried and sobbed as if her heart would break.

When my aunt heard what Madame de Trafford had said, she felt the injury it might do to my sister's impressible nature, and she was very angry. She felt that, whatever her impulse might have been, Madame de Trafford ought to have conquered it, and she determined to see her and to tell her so herself. Very early the next morning she went to the hotel where Madame de Trafford was and asked to see her. She was refused admittance, but she insisted upon waiting, and she did wait, till at last she was let in. Madame de Trafford was then quite composed and calm, very courteous, very kind, very like other people, and my aunt said that in entering upon her subject, it was like accusing a sane person of being perfectly mad. But suddenly, whilst they were talking, Madame de Trafford glided round the table, and standing in front of the fireplace, seemed to rise out of herself, and in her terrible voice, every syllable of which was distinctly audible to my deaf aunt on the other side of the room, exclaimed these words--"Votre nièce est malade; elle sera encore plus malade, et puis elle mourira," and having said this, she went out--she went entirely away--she went straight back to France. She had fulfilled the mission for which she came to England, and the next day she wrote from Beaujour in Touraine to pay her bill at the hotel.

Aunt Eleanor said that to her dying day that awful voice and manner of Madame de Trafford would be present to her mind.

Looking back upon the past, could Esmeralda and her aunt disbelieve in the prediction of Madame de Trafford? Had not my sister in her desk a warning letter which had told the day and hour of her mother's death? and how true it had been! Yet at this time her going to Rome seemed quite impossible; she could not go away whilst all her law affairs were unwound up, indeed even then in the most critical state: besides that, she had no funds. But in November, three suits in Chancery were suddenly decided in her favour. By two of these my sister recovered £8000 of her mother's fortune; by the third she secured £3000 from the trustees who had signed away her mother's marriage settlement. So she and her aunt immediately started for Rome, accompanied by Clémence Boissy, the old maid of her childhood, whom she had summoned to return to her immediately on her recovering an income. I will give a few extracts from Esmeralda's letters after this:--

"Paris, Nov.--At last we did start. But what a packing! what a confusion!... Yesterday I saw Madame Davidoff,[241] as enthusiastic as ever, but she was so rushed upon from all quarters, that I could not get a quiet talk. I also saw the Père de Poulevey, the great friend of the Père de Ravignan, who wrote his life.... And now you will say this is a very cheerful letter, and on the contrary I feel very sad, and very sad I felt at the Sacré Cœur and at S. Roch this morning. Everything I see brings back the past."

"Dec. 8, 1864, Maçon.--How astonished you will be to see the date of this place. 'Why are you not in Rome by this time?' you will exclaim. Because I was so exhausted when we arrived here that Auntie agreed that the only thing to do was to take a long rest, give up the Mont Cenis, and proceed slowly by Nice and Genoa.

"Villefranche, which is about an hour's drive from Ars, is on our way to Lyons. If the road is not a heavy one, Auntie and I shall spend the Feast of the Immaculate Conception there next Thursday, and then proceed on our journey. The mistress of the hotel here has been backwards and forwards to Ars for upwards of twenty-five years, and constantly talked to the Curé d'Ars and heard him preach. 'Vous ne pouvez pas vous imaginer,' she says, 'ce que c'était que d'entendre le Curé d'Ars en chair; on fondait en larmes, on croyait entendre les paroles de notre Seigneur quand il enseignait le peuple. C'était peu de paroles, mais cela remuait jusqu'à fond de l'âme. "Oh, mes enfants," disait le Curé, "si vous pouviez voir le bon Dieu comme je le vois, combien peu de chose seraient à vos yeux les choses de cette terre. Ah! si vous connaissiez l'amour de Dieu!" Et puis les larmes coulaient le long de ses joues. Il pleurait toujours quand il parlait de l'amour de Dieu. Ce n'était pas un grand orateur que l'on écoutait. Oh! non, Mademoiselle, c'étaient seulement quelques paroles qui allaient droit au cœur. Vous deviez l'entendre quand il faisait son catéchisme à midi, à chaque jour un sujet nouveau. L'église était toujours pleine. Il y'a vingt-cinq ans, il y a même trente ans, l'on parlait du Curé d'Ars et on allait à Ars. Le Curé restait dans son confessional jusqu'à minuit, quelquefois jusqu'à une heure de matin. Alors il sortait de l'église pour prendre deux heures de repos. Quatre femmes de la campagne se mettaient aux quatre coins pour empêcher le monde de passer, car, au moindre bruit, M. le Curé se levait et sortait de suite: ces femmes de la campagne étaient bien dévouées.

"'Un jour que j'étais dans l'église d'Ars, le Curé s'écriait, "Laissez passer cette dame," designant du doigt une dame au chapeau verte--"laissez la passer." Un jour une autrefois il me vit; il dit à la foule qui se pressait autour de lui, "Laissez passer cette dame, car elle n'est pas d'ici, il faut qu'elle parte,"--et ainsi j'ai pu m'approcher et lui parler. J'allais voir le Curé d'Ars bien malade d'une maladie des nerfs à la suite de la maladie de ma fille. "Vous êtes bien souffrante," dit le Curé, "vous ne voulez pas encore mourir; c'est pour vos enfants que vous desirez vivre: c'est bien," dit il, "c'est bien; vous serez encore malade aussi longtemps que vous l'avez été, et puis vous serez bien." En effet, il y'avait huit mois que je souffrais, et huit mois après je fus guérie--tel que M. le Curé d'Ars m'avait dit.'

"'Le Vicaire-Général,' said the mistress,'m'a raconté ceci lui-même, avec des larmes aux yeux. Il a logé ici une nuit: c'est alors qu'il me l'a raconté. "Madame," dit il, "je ne pouvais croire à tout ce que j'entendis d'Ars. Je croyais que ces paysans étaient exaltés. Je voulus donc voir en personne: je me rendis à Ars. J'arrivai donc à Ars. Il y'avait beaucoup de monde. J'y suis resté deux jours. Voici ce qui est arrivé. Je quittais l'église avec M. le Curé. J'allais avec lui vers sa petite maison. En arrivant, la vieille cuisinière ou bonne du Curé vient à notre rencontre. 'Ah! M. le Curé,' dit elle, 'nous n'avons plus rien, nous ne pouvons plus donner.'--'Donnez,' répondit M. le Curé, 'donnez toujours.'--'Mais nous ne pouvons pas,' dit encore la vieille femme, 'il n'y a rien, rien,' répetait elle. M. le Curé était vif. Combien il lui a couté pour pouvoir se modérer--'Donnez, donnez toujours par poignées,' dit il encore. 'Comment,' répondit la vieille, 'comment voulez-vous que je donne: il n'y a rien?' "C'est alors," dit M. le Vicaire-Général, "que j'ai dit au Curé, 'Je ferai un rapport à Monseigneur l'Evêque, je suis sûr qu'il vous enverra pour vos pauvres.' Le Curé ne répondit pas; il fit comme un mouvement d'impatience. 'Montez au grénier,' dit il à la vieille cuisinière, 'et donnez, donnez toujours aux pauvres.' Cette fois elle obéit. Elle court, elle ouvre la porte du grénier. Elle descende aussi vite; le grénier était tout plein. 'Ah, M. le Curé, si c'est ainsi,' dit elle, 'nous pouvons toujours donner.' Ce fait," dit M. le Vicaire, "je l'ai vu de mes yeux, et les larmes remplissaient ses yeux en me le racontant."'

"Miraculous cures are still constantly occurring. Clémence is going to-morrow to find out for me a boy whose limbs were distorted and who was made whole. I wish to hear from his own lips about the wonderful cure; but here people are accustomed to all this, and any particular miraculous cure does not strike them as extraordinary. The facts in this case are that the boy was the son of a baker, eight years old, who, with limbs all distorted and suffering acutely, was carried by his parents to Ars. The Vicar-General and several of the clergy were at the church-door when the carriage drove up with this poor cripple in it. His mother carried him to the altar-rail and endeavoured to place him on his knees, but the boy could hardly keep himself in a kneeling posture owing to his distorted limbs, and seemed to swing first to the right and then to the left. When mass was ended he said, 'I am better,' and was led, being supported, to the hotel, where he was laid upon a bed. His mother, remaining in the room, after a while saw him looking upwards intently, and for a long time he continued as if gazing at something above him. She called her husband and said, 'Come and see our child looking upwards; what is he looking at?' Suddenly the boy turned towards his mother and said, 'Lift me off the bed; I think that I am well and that I can walk,'--and so it was: she lifted him on to the floor, and the boy was cured, and has been well from that hour, and lives opposite this hotel at the baker's shop.

"The mistress told me--'Un jour le Curé d'Ars alla voir un curé de Lyon qu'on dit être saint. "Vous prendrez ma place," dit il. "Vous ferez encore plus de conversions."' I am going to Lyons to try to find out this curé. At Maçon also there is a certain 'Curé de S. Pierre,' who is greatly beloved, and of whom many beautiful stories are told.

"I think of you at different times in the day, and try to picture you, sometimes in the study, sometimes reading to Aunt Augustus, sometimes late in the evening sitting on the large sofa, with all your manuscripts on the table, and good Lea coming in to put up the curtains. When I think of all the late family troubles, I try to remember that God never allows anything to happen, however painful, unless it is for our good. It depends on ourselves to make use of every trial, so I trust that you may be able to forgive and forget--the last is the more difficult.

" ... You expect too much good from---- Do not expect too much. We must leave those to flutter like sparrows who cannot soar like eagles. It is S. Ambrose who says so."

My sister next wrote from Avignon:--

"Dec. 11, 1864.--Not further than Avignon! I was ill at Lyons and could not go on. There I had a most agreeable visitor, a M. Gabet, very zealous in the œuvres de la Propagation de la Foi. He spent two evenings with us, and told us much that was very interesting. He told me that he had lately received a donation from Dahomey, and he corresponds with missionaries in every part of the world. Auntie went up to the convent to fetch two friends of mine who were staying there, and I have been given a small medal of the Curé d'Ars blessed by himself."

My sister did not reach Rome till the second week in January.

"Jan. 16, 1865.--We arrived late on Tuesday night, coming voiturier from Leghorn, two long days, and very fatiguing. When we arrived at Leghorn a violent storm was raging, and we were obliged to give up going by sea, only sending Leonardo with the luggage. Auntie, Victoire, Clémence, and I travelled in a tolerable carriage. There are so few travellers that way, that at Orbetello, where we slept, the excitement was intense, the women wishing to examine dress and coiffure, to know the ultima moda. The carriage was quite mobbed, the voiturier having declared it was a gran signora. 'La vogliamo vedere,' the people cried out, and pushed and struggled. It seemed so strange to return to a country where so little could create such an excitement. I was carried upstairs, so terribly tired with the incessant shaking. We slept also at Civita Vecchia, whence Victoire and Clémence went on to Rome by an early train, Auntie and I following late. It was quite dark as we drove up to the Parisani, and the streets seemed perfectly silent. The porter came out saying 'Ben tornata,' and then his wife, with a scarlet handkerchief over her head, exclaiming 'Ben tornata' also, and we came upstairs without being heard by any one else. I rushed through the rooms, throwing open one door after another. In the little sitting-room Clémence and Victoire were sitting together, a look of misery on both faces. When I reached my own room I fell upon a chair: I could scarcely breathe. I heard Victoire cry out,'Mon Dieu! courage; c'est la volonté de Dieu: l'heure de votre mère a sonné, l'heure aussi du mari de Clémence a sonné.' She poured something down my throat and rubbed my hands, and brought me round by degrees. Clémence was sobbing violently for the old husband, whose death she had learnt on her arrival; Auntie was standing looking from one to the other, as if she did not realise how terrible was that evening: she had hoped that the joy of seeing Rome again would make me forget what was sad. Poor Victoire had made one great effort, and then she could scarcely speak for hours. I never saw such devotion to the memory of a relation or friend as her devotion to the memory of dear Mama; and then there was so much to remind her also of the good Félix, gone to his rest since our Roman home was broken up. I had dreaded this arrival for months, and had been glad to put it off from week to week, till I could put it off no longer. Now it is a pleasure to Victoire to unpack Mama's things and bring them to me, one after another, her eyes often filled with tears, and then she says, trying to compose herself, 'Que la volonté de Dieu soit faite.' And yet I cannot wish dear Mama back again. What I had lived for was that deathbed--that it should have God's blessing and that her soul should be saved. I used to think how glorified that soul might be, after so much suffering, if only at death resigned. But now I am going back to past thoughts, instead of telling my Augustus about the present.

"The old beggar-woman at San Claudio rushed towards me. 'L'ho saputo,' she said,'quella benedetta anima!' and she cried also, and then the sacristan of San Claudio, and he told me how Mama had died on one of the great days of San Claudio--the feast of Notre Dame de Bon Conseil--our Lady's altar under that title being the altar where Mama had knelt for so many years: all have been struck by this."

"Feb. 9.--It is, as you say, a gathering up of the fragments that remain. I am beginning to feel the sense of loneliness in these desolate rooms less, though I still feel it very much. I do not wish that anything should be different from what God has willed it I used to tell Mama when we were so poor how strange it was that I never felt poor. She used to say that was the great difference between herself and me, that she felt poor and I did not; why not she could never understand. I feel quite certain that Mama would never have liked Rome again; probably she never would have returned here, and perhaps it was necessary that through suffering she should be prepared for death by being detached from the things of life.

"Most of the Romans have called, some paying long visits--Duchess Sora, Princess Viano, Prince Doria, Dukes Fiano and Sora. In fact, a day never passes without two or three visitors. I have made three devoted friends--the Princess Galitzin; the Padre Pastacaldi, a venerable ecclesiastic of Pisa, who is anxious to further my views in establishing a particular association for raising funds for the Church; and lastly, Don Giovanni Merlini, the friend of 'the Venerable'[243] for thirty years, who has already paid me four visits. These visits are quite delightful: I always feel I am in the presence of a saint. His language is most beautiful. Yesterday he gave me his blessing in the most solemn, earnest manner, laying his hand on my head. I have heard from him so much of the Venerable del Bufalo.... A great storm has swept over the nuns of the Precious Blood: it nearly swept them out of England, but instead of that they are to move to the Italian Church of S. Pietro in Bloomsbury. I have had a great deal of correspondence about them."

"March 4.--The friend of the Venerable[244] came to-day, and we planned together work for the nuns in London,--a great work I have wished to see established since early in 1858. Again he gave me his solemn blessing. He spoke of poverty--voluntary poverty, but said that all were not called to that 'spogliamento.' Then I told him that I had also been poor, and he looked around at the decorations of the room and said simply 'Iddio ci ha rimediato.' His is certainly a beautiful face from its expression; there is so much light about it, and such simplicity and humility. Pierina[245] certainly ought to be saint-like, since she has been trained to a religious life by such a man."

"March 9.--During my mother's illness I often thought of the 80,000 who die daily, and who have to appear before the judgment-seat and who are found wanting. Sometimes, when I am alone, I think how in every moment which I am idling away a soul has been judged, and perhaps a prayer could have saved that soul. Oh! in your watchings beside the sick-bed, ask forgiveness for the souls that are then passing away from the earth, that they may be counted amongst the blessed for eternity.... It is strange what mental agony one can live through. A sort of supernatural strength is given when it is required, and is it not another proof of the watchful tenderness of our Blessed Lord? It is so true, that when a soul is ready for the change, death is only an entering on the perfected life.... I believe that God has still blessings left for my brother: His blessings can never be exhausted."

"May 3.--How you will envy me when you hear that the saint of Acuto, the Rev. Mother-General of the Precious Blood, is coming to Rome at the end of the week and is coming to see me. The Father-General came to give me this welcome news, when I was wondering and planning how I could get to Acuto with my weak back. I have begged for two visits at least.... I have constant letters from the Rev. Mother of the Precious Blood in London about the new work of her nuns. I have been thinking of writing the life of the Venerable del Bufalo. Don Giovanni Merlini, the Father-General, promises help and materials, and the Italian life is very poor. The Taigi and Bufalo lives would come out so well together, as they lived at the same time, and died, I believe, in the same year, though quite independent of each other; but I have not the gift of writing--there is the difficulty.

"On the 25th there was an anniversary High Mass and a very beautiful choir for dearest Mama, Monseigneur Level attending, and many friends. Mrs. Monteith sat next to me, and felt it so much, she cried nearly the whole time. It is so beautiful this love for the dead in the Catholic Church.

"I have had a letter from Mrs. Wagner, who says just that which struck me in one of Father Galway's sermons, when he spoke of parents' sorrow at the loss of their children, that they are to look upon them as gifts lent for a time. She says, 'We do not repine, but render back with thankfulness the gift lent us for a season.'

"To-day I had a beautiful simple note from the Father-General of the Precious Blood. I wrote to thank him for several things he had sent me. His answer was, 'Do not thank me; it suffices me that you love our Lord Jesus Christ. I bless you from my heart. Pray for me miserable.' I thought how my Augustus would have liked this note."

My sister during the whole of this winter very seldom left the house, and never went into society. Political differences, however, rendered Roman society at this time less pleasant than before. Esmeralda wrote--"The usual conversation goes on, but all parties are divided and contradictory: the Pope (Pius IX.) alone is perfectly calm, and trusts in Providence whilst the world is raging and storming and plotting." If Esmeralda went out, it was generally to the Villa Ludovisi, where the Duke and Duchess Sora were living in a sort of honourable banishment, the Duke's parents, the Prince and Princess Piombino, having been exiled to Tuscany. The Duchess Sora used to talk to my sister of the patriarchal life in her great "villa," where there were so many small farmhouses and cottages within the grounds, that it gave her occupation enough to visit their inmates and learn their characters. She said that she brought up her children amongst the people within the walls of the villa, that they might thus early learn to know thoroughly those who would depend on them afterwards. She let them call one man after another to work in their little gardens, that they might thus make individual acquaintance with each. On Good Friday, when the chaplain called in all the work-people to prayer, there were seventy in the chapel, including the Duke and herself, and all, as it were, one great family.[246]

One of the people who most rejoiced over Esmeralda's return to Rome was Giacinta Facchini, commonly known as "the Saint of St. Peter's." This extraordinary woman lived for forty years in St. Peter's without ever leaving it, devoting herself to incessant prayer and sleeping in a cell in one of the pillars. When people had any particular object in view, they used to go down to St. Peter's and ask her to pray for it. Esmeralda used constantly, during her prosperity, to go to visit her in St. Peter's, and she would remain with her for hours. At length one day the confessor of the saint came to her and said that now, though she had lived in St. Peter's for forty years, she would be showing a far more real devotion to God and a more lowly spirit if she were to break through the life which was beginning to make her celebrated, and return to the humble service of God in the world. Giacinta Facchini obeyed, and after that she often used to go to see my sister at the Palazzo Parisani. But she still spent the greater part of her time in St. Peter's, where I have often seen her quaint figure, in a half nun's dress, bowed in prayer before one of the altars, or perfectly prostrate on the pavement in silent adoration of the Blessed Sacrament.

Here are a few extracts from Esmeralda's private meditations at this time:--

"Let me offer myself continually with all I have for the greater glory of God, remembering the words of St. Ignatius, that 'having received everything from God, we ought to be ever ready to render back all that He has given us.' The propensity most opposed to the reign of Jesus in our souls is the want of resolution in all matters connected with spiritual advancement. Kneeling at the foot of the cross, let me make war against all my evil propensities; that I may be purified and strengthened in God's love, let me seek to detach myself from everything, exterior and interior, that separates me from God.'

"Self-love must be overcome by mortification of self, by asking of God to give us His love, to fill us with His love, for if the love of God fills our hearts, self-love must be rooted out. Let me ask of our Lord that I may have the same resolution in spiritual matters, and in the carrying out and on of a spiritual life, which I have where a temporal matter is concerned. Oh! with what zeal and earnestness can I pursue a temporal object, with the same zeal and earnestness may I carry out my resolutions for a spiritual life."

"Jan. 14, 1865.--Unless we can build up a solitude in our hearts, completely detaching ourselves from the love of everything in this world, we can never hope to attain to that spiritual joy which is a preparation for the life of Jesus in our souls, a preparation for the resurrection to eternal life."

"March 4.--Where there is such a strong attachment to this life, my will cannot be perfectly united to the Divine. Oh! how many steps there are in the ladder of a spiritual life! Detachment from this life must gradually lead to the union of my will with the Divine and to the entire indwèlling of the love of Jesus in my soul."

"March 17.--By the light of the wounds of Jesus Christ, may I search the innermost folds of my heart, and cast out all that is contrary to charity and humility. 'We must study in the book of Charity more than in any other: that book teaches us all things;' these are the words of S. Dominic."

"March 30.--May filial love of God take the place of servile fear in our hearts; then will our Lord draw nigh to us and replenish us with His grace. When filial love has closed the door against all earthly thoughts, then shall we return into that inward solitude in which our Lord loves that we should dwell, to seek Him and commune with Him."

"April 1.--I ask for the grace of a pure love of God. The more we can leave off thinking of ourselves, the nearer we shall attain to that union with our Lord which the saints speak of--loving Him only and entirely, because He first loved us. In proportion as our confidence in God increases, and we can lay aside all confidence in ourselves, we shall attain purity of intention in all our thoughts, words, and actions. Let us seek that purity of intention which can only follow confidence in God, and can only exist in those souls which unite themselves entirely to God."

"April 22.--Day by day I leave at the foot of the cross something more of myself. I cannot live again the time that is no longer mine. We are constantly journeying on to our last end, so let us strive in our spiritual life truly to lay at the foot of the cross something of that which binds our wills to ourselves and to creatures, and thus free our will from all that hinders its perfect union with the will of our Lord Jesus Christ."

I have been making a long digression from my personal story, but Esmeralda, in her gentle patience and ardent search after all things high and holy, had become so greatly endeared to us in the last few years, that her life was almost ours. And indeed all those things are ever a part of life which are a constant part of thoughts and conversation.

* * * * *

In the summer of 1864 we had a delightful visit at Holmhurst from Dean Alford and his family. He read Tennyson's "Guinevere" aloud to us in the garden, and was at his very best, full of anecdote and fun. I remember his description of a trial for murder which resulted in a verdict of manslaughter owing to the very effective evidence of a Somersetshire peasant. "He'd a stick and he'd a stick, and he hit he and he hit he, and if he'd ha hit he when he hit he, he'd ha killed he and not he he."

In the autumn, while I was staying with Mr. Stephen Lawley at Escrick near York, I had much conversation with his charming old mother, Lady Wenlock.[247] Here are some notes of what she told me:--

"I once saw Lord Nelson. It was when I was quite a little child. The maids took me to church at St. George's, and there I saw the wonderful little man, covered with orders and with one arm. They told me it was Lord Nelson, and I knew it was, for his figure and prints were in all the shop-windows.

"I remember well the battle of Trafalgar. It was the Euryalus, Captain Blackwood, that brought the news, and, oh dear! the sensation. I was seven years old then, but I knew the names of all the ships and captains. My sister was then the mistress of my father's house, and I was sent for down to her. She was not up, and the newspaper was lying on the bed. 'Oh, my dear,' she said, 'my father has sent me up the newspaper, and we have taken twenty ships of the line, but--Nelson is dead!' Child as I was, I burst into tears; one had been taught to think that nothing could go on without him.

"I cannot quite forgive Dean Trench his book.[248] Nelson was the one hero of his time, and it was a pity to bring up the bad vulgar side again and not to let it sleep.... The Lady Carysfort the book mentions was my aunt. My cousins were quite devoted to Mrs. Trench, and have often told me how enchanted they felt when she came back to England."

* * *

"King George III. used to be very fond of driving about in Berkshire with the Queen and visiting the families in the neighbourhood of Windsor--those whom they used to honour with their notice. He often came to my grandfather,[249] who was gouty with the gout of that day, which prevented people from rising, so that he was not able to get up when the King came in. The King and Queen always came quite simply in a carriage and four with the prickers riding before in crimson liveries. There was a particular point in the avenue at which the prickers were visible from the windows, and when they were seen, my grandfather used to ring the bell and ask if there was a round of beef in the house. He was generally answered in the affirmative, and then it was all right, for none of the royal party took luncheon, only the Queen used to have a particular kind of chocolate brought to her: my father generally offered it on a tray, after they had been about half-an-hour in the house. They used to take an interest in everything, and if any one ventured to rehang their pictures, they would say, 'Mr. So-and-so, why have you rehung your pictures?' I remember the King one day asking my grandfather if he had read the memoirs which every one was talking about at that time. They were those of the Duc de St. Simon, La Grande Mademoiselle, &c., and my father said no, he had not seen them. The King came again within the fortnight, and my grandfather did not see him coming down the avenue, nor did he know the King was in the house, till there was a kind of fumbling outside the door, and the King, who would not let any one come to help him, opened the door, with a great pile of volumes reaching from his waist to his chin, saying, 'Here, Mr. Grenville, I have brought you the books we were talking about.' But as the King came through the door, the books slipped and fell all about on the floor: my grandfather could not move, and the King began to pick them up, till some one came to help him and put them on the table for him.

"The scene on the terrace at Windsor on Sundays was the prettiest thing. It was considered proper that every one in the neighbourhood who could should go; those who were in a position of life to be presented at court stood in the foremost rank. The presence of the King was announced by the coming of 'Lavender,' a kind of policeman-guard, who used to clear the way and always preceded the royal family; he was the only kind of guard they had. The Queen wore evening dress, a sort of cap with a string of diamonds, and a loose flowing kind of gown; there was no such thing then as demi-toilette. After her came the princesses, or any of the princes who happened to have come down from London, or, on fine days, some of the Cabinet Ministers. The royal family stopped perpetually and talked to every one. I remember the King coming up to me when I was a very little girl, and dreadfully frightened I was. 'Well, now,' said the King, 'and here is this little girl. Come, my dear, take off your bonnet,' he said (for I wore a poke), and then he added, 'I wanted to see if you were like your mother, my dear.'

"It was Miss Burney who gave the impression of Queen Charlotte as being so formidable. Nothing could be more false; she was the kindest person that ever lived, and so simple and unostentatious. The fact was that Miss Burney had been spoilt by having been made a sort of queen in Dr. Johnson's court. The day 'Evelina' came out Dr. Johnson said to her, 'Miss Burney, die to-night,' meaning that she had reached the highest point of fame which it was possible to attain. Queen Charlotte made her one of her readers, for she was passionately fond of being read to while she worked. But Miss Burney was one of those people afflicted with mauvaise honte. She could not read a bit, and the Queen could not hear a word she said. 'Mama the Queen,' said the Duchess of Gloucester to me, 'never could bear Miss Burney, poor thing!' So the Queen invented some other place in her extreme kindness to Miss Burney, to prevent having to send her away, and in that place Miss Burney was obliged to stand.

"An instance of Queen Charlotte's extreme kindness was shown when she made Lady Elizabeth Montagu one of her ladies-in-waiting, out of her great love to Lady Cornwallis. When Lady Elizabeth arrived at court, the Queen sent for her and said, 'My dear, you have no mother here, so I must beg that you will consider me as your mother, and if you have any trouble or difficulty, that you will come to me at once.' When Lady Elizabeth went to her room, she found the bed covered with new things--new dresses, a quantity of black velvet to make the trains which were worn then, and a great many ornaments. 'My dear,' said the Queen, 'you will want these things, and it will be a year before your salary is due; I thought it might not be convenient to you to buy them just now, so you must accept them from me.'

"Another day, when Lady Elizabeth had been ill in the evening and unable to go with the Queen to a concert, early in the morning she heard a knock at her door while she was in bed, and the Queen came in in her dressing-gown, with what we called a combing-cloth (which they used because of the powder) over her shoulders, and all her hair down. 'May I come in, Lady Elizabeth?' she said. 'I heard you were ill, and there is nothing stirring to-day, so I came to beg that you will not think of getting up, and that you will send for everything you can wish for. Pray think of everything that it is right for you to have.'"

* * * * *

"Mrs. Fry came to Escrick once, and was pleased to see our gardens and the few little things we had to show her. 'Friend Caroline, I like thy pig-styes,' she said."

During this and the following summer I was often with my sister in London, and saw much of her friends, persons who have been entirely lost to me, never seen again, since the link which I had to them in her has been broken. Thus at Esmeralda's house I often saw the gentle sisters of the Precious Blood and their sweet-looking Mother, Pierina Roleston. She was utterly ignorant of worldly matters, and entirely governed by her priests, but her own character was of a simplicity much like that of the Curé d'Ars. She once described to me Maria de Matthias, and the story of the foundation of her Order.

"Oh, I wish you could see the Mother-General: she is so simple, such a primitive person. When she wants anything, she just goes away and talks to our Blessed Lord, and He gives it to her. Sometimes the nuns come and say to her, 'What can we do, Mother? we have no flour, we cannot bake;' and she answers, 'Why should you be troubled? Are not the granaries of our Master always full? We will knock at them, and He will give us something.'

"One day there was nothing at all left at Acuto: there was no bread, and there was no money to buy any. But Mother-General had just that simple faith that she was not at all troubled by it, and she even brought in five additional persons, five workmen who were to make some repairs which were necessary for the convent. When they came, she made the nuns come into the chapel, and she said, 'Now, my children, you know that we have nothing left, and we must pray to our Master that He will send us something;' and she herself, going up to the altar, began to talk to Our Blessed Lord and to tell Him all her needs. 'Dear Lord,' she said, 'we have nothing to eat, and I am just come to tell you all about it, and to ask you to send us something; and I am in debt too, dear Lord. I owe twenty-five scudi for your work; will you send it to me?' and so she continued to talk to Our Blessed Lord, just telling Him all she wanted.

"At that moment there was a knock at the door, and a young man put a paper into the portress's hand, only saying these words--'Pray for the benefactor.' The portress brought the paper to the Mother-General in the chapel, and she opened it and said,'My children, give thanks; the Master has sent us what we asked for.' It was the twenty-five scudi. Mother-General was not surprised. She knew that our Blessed Lord heard her, and she felt sure He would answer her. Soon after the convent bell rang for the dinner-hour. The nuns were coming downstairs, but there was nothing for them to eat. The Mother-General said, however, that the Master would send them something, and indeed, as they reached the foot of the stairs, the door-bell rang, and a large basket of food was left at the door, sent by some ladies in the neighbourhood. 'See how our Lord has sent dinner to us,' said the Mother-General.

"The Mother-General is an educated person, really indeed quite learned, considering that in the time of her youth it was not thought well to teach girls much, for fear they should learn anything that is evil.

"When the Mother-General was a young person, as Maria de Matthias in Vallecorso, she was very worldly and gay. But she heard 'the Venerable' (Gaspare del Bufalo) preach in Vallecorso, and, as he preached, his eye fixed upon her, he seemed to pierce her to the very soul. When she went home, she cut off all her hair except the curls in front, and turned her gown inside out, and wore her oldest bonnet. She thought to please our Lord in this way, and she remained for seven years shut up in her father's house, but all that time she was not satisfied, and at last she went to 'the Venerable' and asked him what she was to do, for she wished to do something for our Blessed Lord. And the Venerable said to her, 'You must go to Acuto, and there you will be told what you must do.' She had never heard of Acuto, but she went to a friend of hers, also named Maria, and inquired where Acuto was, for she was ordered to go there. The friend said she would go with her, and ordered out her horse, but the horse was a wild horse,[250] and she did not know how to ride it. Maria de Matthias, however, went up to the horse and patted it, saying, 'You must not be wild, you must become calm, because it is necessary that we should go to Acuto: you and I have to go in obedience, and I cannot walk, for it is twelve hours' journey.' When the Mother had thus spoken to the horse, it became quite mild, and, hanging down its head, went quite gently, step by step, and the Mother rode upon it. When they had gone half-way, she wished that the other Maria should ride, and the Mother got off, and Maria climbed upon a wall to mount the horse, but with her the horse would not move an inch, and then Maria felt it was not our Lord's will that she should mount the horse, and the Mother continued to ride to Acuto. When they arrived, and the Mother got off the horse, it became again immediately quite wild, and when Maria attempted to touch it, it was in such a fury that it kicked and stamped till the fire came out of the ground.

"The priest of Acuto was waiting to receive the Mother, and she remained there teaching a school. She believed at first that this only was her mission, but in a short time the children began to call her 'Mother,' and to ask her to give them a habit. The first nun who received the habit was a little child of eight years old, who is now Mother Caroline, Superior of the Convent at Civita Vecchia.

"The Mother-General often preaches, and she preaches so powerfully that even the priests crowd to hear her. When the people see her come forward to the edge of the altar-steps and begin to speak, they say 'Hark! the great Mother is going to talk to us,' and there is fixed silence and attention. She generally begins by addressing them as 'Brothers and Sisters,' and then she teaches them.

"The Mother-General cannot write. When she is obliged to write a letter, she kneels down and kisses the feet of the Crucifix and asks Our Lord to help her, and letters of hers which she has written in this way, in the most beautiful hand, are preserved. When there are no flowers for the altar she says, 'Our Master's flowers are always blooming; He will send us some;' and that day flowers come.

"After her death Sister Caterina appeared three times to Sister Filomena, and begged her to tell the Mother not to be troubled, for that the Sisters would suffer yet for four months longer, and then that they would have all that they needed. That day four months Lady Londonderry gave us a house.

"'The Venerable' left a prophecy that an English subject should come to join his Order in Italy, and then go back to found the female Order in England. When I took the veil, it was remembered that the Venerable had said this.

"Don Giovanni Merlini used to accompany 'the Venerable' on his missions. 'The Venerable' used to say, 'Take care of Don Giovanni, for he is a saint.' Don Giovanni is still living at the little church of the Crociferi near the Fountain of Trevi."

At this time my sister went frequently to see and consult Dr. Grant, the Bishop of Southwark. She believed him to be quite a saint, and fancied that he had the gift of healing, and she delighted to work for others under his direction. But Esmeralda was always willing to believe in or to find out saints of the nineteenth century. It was by Dr. Grant's advice, I believe, that she went to visit a nun of saintly attributes who lived near him, the Sœur Marie Anne. Of this visit she wrote: "Sœur Marie Anne was quite full of canonizations and of all that was going on about the Venerable Labre, because she said that, when she was a child, she had once seen him as a venerable pilgrim, going through a village, when the boys stoned him. She had been so struck, so saisie by his appearance, that she went up to him and said, 'Forgive me, but I hope that you will not refuse to tell your name.'--'Labre,' he said, and the name Labre had stuck by her to that day. She implored me to get up a special veneration for the Venerable Labre, but I said that I really could not, for he was too dirty."

In 1863, under the direction of her priests, and with the assistance of many Catholic friends, Esmeralda had published a "Manual of the Dolours of Our Lady," which she caused to be translated into almost every language of Europe and to be disseminated among all its nations; this she did through the medium of foreign converts. In her "retreats" and in her religious life Esmeralda had for some years been brought nearer to many of her former friends with the same interests, but especially to Lady Lothian, Lady Georgiana Fullerton, and to a Miss Bradley, a recent pervert to the Church of Rome. By them she had been induced to join the society of "Les Enfants de Marie;" a society of persons united together by special acts of devotion to the Virgin, and works of charity conducted in her honour. In sorrow, faithfully borne, the beauty and power of holiness had become hourly more apparent to Esmeralda. But she could never join in the exaggeration which led many of these ladies to invest the Virgin with all the attributes of our Lord Himself, as well as with the perfection of human sympathies. I remember as rather touching that when the Dowager Lady Lothian was writing to Esmeralda about her son as being so "fearfully Protestant," she said, "It is very trying to know that one cannot share one's thoughts with any one. I try to make our dear Mother more my companion, but I am tempted sometimes to remember how Our Lady, in all her sorrows, never can have had that of anxiety about her son's soul. I know that she has it in and for us, her adopted children, but she never can have felt it about Our Lord."

From the devotion which Esmeralda felt to the Blessed Virgin followed her especial interest in the Order of the Servites, who had lately been established in London, and who always wore black in sympathy with the sorrows of Mary. The very name had an interest for Esmeralda, derived as it was from the special love shown to the Madonna by seven noble Florentines, the founders of the Order, which induced the children to point at them in the streets, saying, "Guardati i servi di Maria." For the Servites Esmeralda never ceased to obtain contributions.

Another confraternity in which my sister had entered herself as an associate, together with Lady Lothian and most of her friends, was that of "The Holy Hour"--first instituted by the beatified nun, Margaret Mary Alacoque of Paray le Monial, a convent near Monceaux les Mines,[251] for which her admirers, and my sister amongst them, had worked a splendid carpet, to cover the space in front of her altar. The rules of this society set forth that it "is established as a special manner of sharing the agony of our Divine Lord, and of uniting in associated prayer for reparation of insults offered Him by sin. The associates of this devotion thus form a band of faithful disciples, who in spirit accompany our Saviour every Thursday night to the scene of His agony, and share more particularly that watch which Our Blessed Lady and the Apostles kept on the eve of the Passion. With this end in view, the associates spend one hour of Thursday evening in mental or vocal prayer upon the Agony in the Garden, or other mysteries of the Passion." Thus every Thursday night my sister repeated:--

"O Lord Jesus Christ, kneeling before Thee I unite myself to Thy Sacred Heart and offer myself again to Thy service. In this hour when Thou wert about to be betrayed into the hands of sinners, I, a poor sinner, dare to come before Thee and say, 'Yes, Lord, I too many times have betrayed and denied Thee, but Thou, who knowest all things, knowest that I desire to love Thee, that I desire to comfort Thee insulted by sin, that I desire to watch with Thee one hour, and to cry before Thy throne, 'O Lord, remember me when Thou comest into thy kingdom!' And therefore, with my whole heart, I now promise before thee--

"When the mysteries of Thy life and Passion are denied: the more firmly will I believe in them and defend them with my life.

"When the spirit of unbelief, coming in like a flood, seeks to quench our hope: I will hope in Thee and take refuge in Thy Sacred Heart.

"When blinded men obstinately shut their hearts to Thy love: I will love Thee who hast shown me an everlasting love.

"When the Majesty and power of Thy Divinity are denied: I will say to Thee--day by day--'My Lord and my God!'

"When Thy law is broken and Thy sacraments profaned: I will keep Thy words in my heart and draw near to thy holy altar with joy.

"When all men forsake Thee and flee from Thy ways: I will follow Thee, my Jesus, up the way of sorrow, striving to bear Thy cross.

"When the evil one, like a roaring lion, shall seek everywhere the souls of men: I will raise Thy standard against them and draw them to Thy Sacred Heart.

"When the Cross shall be despised for the love of pleasure and the praise of men: I will renew my baptismal vows, and again renounce the devil, the world, and the flesh.

"When men speak lightly of Thy Blessed Mother and mock at the power of Thy Church: I will renew my love to the Mother of God, hailing her as 'Our life, our sweetness, and our hope,' and will again give thanks for the Church that is founded upon the rock."

At my sister's house, I now, at least on one occasion, met each of my brothers, but we never made the slightest degree of real acquaintance; indeed, I doubt if I should have recognised either of them if I had met him in the street. When my eldest brother, Francis, came of age, he had inherited the old Shipley property of Gresford in Flintshire, quantities of old family plate, &c., and a clear £3000 a year. He was handsome and clever, a good linguist and a tolerable artist. But he had a love of gambling, which was his ruin, and before he was seven-and-twenty (October 1857) he was in the Queen's Bench, without a penny in the world, with Gresford sold--Hurstmonceaux sold--his library, pictures, and plate sold, and £53,000 of debts. After Francis was released in 1860, he went to join Garibaldi in his Italian campaign, and being a brave soldier, and, with all his faults, devoted to military adventure and impervious to hardships, he was soon appointed by the Dictator as his aide-de-camp. He fought bravely in the siege of Capua. His especial duty, however, was to watch and follow the extraordinary Contessa della Torre, who rode with the troops, and by her example incited the Italians to prodigies of valour. Of this lady Francis said--

"The Contessa della Torre was exceedingly handsome. She wore a hat and plume, trousers, boots, and a long jacket. She was foolhardy brave. When a shell exploded by her, instead of falling on the ground like the soldiers, she would stand looking at it, and making a cigarette all the time. The hospital was a building surrounding a large courtyard, and in the centre of the court was a table where the amputations took place. By the side of the surgeon who operated stood the Contessa della Torre, who held the arms and legs while they were being cut off, and when they were severed, chucked them away to join others on a heap close by. There were so many, that she had a heap of arms on one side of her and a heap of legs on the other. The soldiers, animated by her example, often sang the Garibaldian hymn while their limbs were being taken off, though they fainted away afterwards.

"When the war was over, the Contessa della Torre retired to Milan. Her first husband, the Count della Torre, she soon abandoned; her second husband, Signor Martino, a rich banker, soon abandoned her. Lately she has founded a Society for the Conversion of the Negroes of Central Africa, of which she appointed herself patroness, secretary, and treasurer; and, obtaining an English Clergy List, wrote in all directions for subscriptions. Of course many clergy took no notice of the appeal, but a certain proportion responded and sent donations, which it is needless to say were not applied to Central Africa."

After the siege of Capua, Francis was very ill with a violent fever at Naples, and then remained there for a long time because he was too poor to go away. It was during his stay at Naples that he formed his friendship with the K.'s, about which my sister has left some curious notes.

"When Francis first went to Naples, he had his pay, was well to do, and stayed at the Hotel Victoria. Amongst the people who were staying in the house and whom he regularly met at the table-d'hôte, were an old Mr. K. and his daughter. Old Mr. K. was a very handsome old gentleman and exceedingly pleasant and agreeable; Miss K. was also handsome, and of very pleasing manners: both were apparently exceedingly well off. After some time, the K.'s went to Rome, where they passed some time very pleasantly. When they returned, the siege of Capua was taking place, and it was a source of great surprise to the Garibaldian officers to see the father and daughter constantly walking about arm in arm with the most perfect sang-froid in the very teeth of the firing, shells bursting all around them. The Garibaldians remonstrated in vain: the K.'s remained unhurt in the heat of every battlefield, and appeared to bear charmed lives.

"Some time after, it transpired that the K.'s had no money to pay their bills at the Victoria. They were much respected there, having been there often before, but they could not be allowed to remain without payment, so the landlord told them they must leave. They went to another hotel, where the same thing happened. Then they went to a lodging.

"One day Francis met them coming down under the arch in the Chiaja. He turned round and went with them to the Villa Reale. As they went, Miss K. spoke of the great distress which was then prevalent in Naples, and said that a gentleman had just begged of them in the street, and that they had nothing to give him. 'Before I would be reduced to that,' she said, 'I would drown myself.'--'Yes, and I too would drown myself,' said Mr. K.; but what they said did not strike Francis till afterwards. When they reached the Villa Reale, they walked up and down together under the avenue. Miss K. was more than usually lively and agreeable, and they did not separate till nightfall, when the gates of the Villa were going to be shut.

"At two o'clock the next morning, Francis was awakened by the most dreadful and vivid dream. He dreamt that he stood on the little promontory in the Villa Reale, and that he saw two corpses bobbing up and down a short distance off. The dream so took possession of him, that he jumped up, dressed himself, and rushed down to the Villa, but the gates were shut when he got there, and he had to wait till they were opened at four o'clock in the morning. He then ran down the avenue to the promontory, and thence, exactly as he had seen in his dream, he saw two corpses bobbing up and down on the waves a short distance off. He called to some fishermen, who waded in and brought them to land, and he then at once recognised Mr. and Miss K. They must have concealed themselves in the Villa till the gates were closed, and must then have deliberately climbed over the railing of the promontory, and then tied each other's ankles and wrists, and, after filling their pockets with heavy stones, leapt off into the sea.

"Capua they had vainly hoped would destroy them.

"Some time after Francis found that Mr. K. had once been exceedingly rich, but had been ruined: that his wife, who had a large settlement, had then left him, making him a handsome allowance. A few days before the catastrophe this allowance had been suddenly withdrawn, and Mr. K. with the daughter, who devoted herself to him, preferred death to beggary."

It may seem odd that I have never mentioned my second brother, William, in these memoirs, but the fact is, that after he grew up, I never saw him for more than a few minutes. It is one of the things I regret most in life that I never made acquaintance with William. I believe now that he was misrepresented to us and that he had many good qualities; and I often feel, had he lived till I had the means of doing so, how glad I should have been to have helped him, and how fond I might have become of him. At Eton he was an excessively good-looking boy, very clever, very mischievous, and intensely popular with his companions. He never had any fortune, so that it was most foolish of his guardian (Uncle Julius) to spend £2000 which had been bequeathed to him by "the Bath aunts," in buying him a commission in the Blues. I only once saw him whilst he was in the army, and only remember him as a great dandy, but I must say that he had the excuse that everything he wore became him. After he left the army he was buffeted about from pillar to post, and lived no one knows where or how. Our cousin Lord Ravensworth was very kind to him, and so was old Lady Paul; but to Hurstmonceaux or Holmhurst he was never invited, and he would never have been allowed to come. I have often thought since how very odd it was that when he died, neither my mother nor I wore the slightest mourning for him; but he was so entirely outside our life and thoughts, that somehow it would never have occurred to us. He had, however, none of the cold self-contained manner which characterised Francis, but was warm-hearted, cordial, affectionate, and could be most entertaining. After his mother's great misfortunes he went to Spain on some temporary appointment, and at Barcelona nearly died of a fever, through which he was nursed by a lady, who had taken an extraordinary fancy to him; but on his return, when it was feared he would marry her, he took every one by surprise in espousing the very pretty portionless daughter of a physician at Clifton.

During the year 1864 I constantly saw my Lefevre cousins and found an increasing friendship for them. Sir John always showed me the greatest kindness, being full of interest in all my concerns. I consulted him on many subjects, feeling that he was the only person I had ever known, except my mother, willing to take the trouble of thinking how to give the best advice and perfectly disinterested in giving it: consequently I always took his advice and his only. His knowledge was extraordinary, and was only equalled by his humility and self-forgetfulness. Many were the interesting reminiscences of other days which he delighted to call up--many the remarkable parallels he drew between present events and those he remembered--many the charming stories he told me. One of these, which has always struck me as very grand and dramatic, I have so often repeated that I will make a note of it here:--

"Within the memory of those still living there resided in Madrid a family called Benalta. It consisted of Colonel Benalta, a man of choleric and sharp disposition; of his wife, Madame Benalta; of his young daughter; of his little son Carlos, a boy ten years old; and of the mother of Madame Benalta, who was a woman of large property and of considerable importance in the society at Madrid. On the whole, they were quoted as an example of a happy and harmonious family. It is true that there were, however, certain drawbacks to their being completely happy, entirely harmonious, and the chief of these was that Colonel Benalta, when his temper was not at its best, would frequently, much more often than was agreeable, say to his wife, 'My dear, you know nothing: my dear, you know nothing at all: you know nothing whatever.' This was very disagreeable to Madame Benalta, but it was far more unpleasant to the mother of Madame Benalta, who considered her daughter to be a very distinguished and gifted woman, and who did not at all like to have it said, especially in public, that she knew--nothing!

"However, as I have said, on the whole, as Madrid society went, the Benaltas were quoted as an example of a happy and harmonious family.

"One day Colonel Benalta was absent on military duty, but the rest of the family were assembled in the drawing-room at Madrid. In the centre of the room, at a round table, sat Madame Benalta and her daughter working. At a bureau on one side of the room sat the mother of Madame Benalta, counting out the money which she had just received for the rents of her estates in Andalusia, arranging the louis-d'ors in piles of tens before her, and eventually putting them away in a strong box at her side. At another table on the other side of the room sat little Carlos Benalta writing a copy.

"Now I do not know the exact words of the Spanish proverb which formed the copy that Carlos Benalta wrote, but it was something to the effect of 'Work while it is to-day, for thou knowest not what may happen to-morrow.' And the child wrote it again and again till the page was full, and then he signed it, 'Carlos Benalta, Sept. 22nd,' and he took the copy to his mother.

"Now the boy had signed his copy 'Carlos Benalta, Sept. 22nd,' but it really was Sept. 21. And Madame Benalta was a very superstitious woman; and when she saw that in his copy Carlos had anticipated the morrow--the to-morrow on which 'thou knowest not what may happen'--it struck her as an evil omen, and she was very much annoyed with Carlos, and spoke sharply, saying that he had been very careless, and that he must take the copy back and write it all over again. And Carlos, greatly crestfallen, took the copy and went back to his seat. But the mother of Madame Benalta, who always indulged and petted Carlos, looked up from her counting and said, 'Bring the copy to me.' And when she saw it she said to her daughter, 'I think you are rather hard upon Carlos, my dear; he has evidently taken pains with his copy and written it very well; and as for the little mistake at the end, it really does not signify; so I hope you will forgive him, and not expect him to write it again.' Upon which Madame Benalta, but with a very bad grace, said, 'Oh, of course, if his grandmother says he is not to write it again, I do not expect him to do it; but I consider, all the same, that he ought to have been obliged to do it for his carelessness.' Then the grandmother took ten louis-d'ors from the piles before her, and she tore the copy out of the book and rolled them up in it, and sealed the parcel, and she wrote upon the outside, 'For my dear grandson, Carlos Benalta; to be given to him when I am dead!' And she showed it to her daughter and her grand-daughter, and said, 'Some day when I am passed away, this will be a little memorial to Carlos of his old grandmother, who loved him and liked to save him from a punishment.' And she put the packet away in the strong box with the rest of the money.

"The next morning the news of a most dreadful tragedy startled the people of Madrid. The mother of Madame Benalta, who inhabited an apartment in the same house above that of her daughter and son-in-law, was found murdered in her room under the most dreadful circumstances. She had evidently fought hard for her life. The whole floor was in pools of blood. She had been dragged from one piece of furniture to another, and eventually she had been butchered lying across the bed. There were the marks of a bloody hand all down the staircase, and the strong box was missing. Everything was done that could be done to discover the murderer, but unfortunately he had chosen the one day in the year when such a crime was difficult to trace. As Mademoiselle Benalta was not yet 'out,' and as the family liked a quiet domestic life, they never went out in the evening, and the street door was known to be regularly fastened. Therefore, on this one day in the year, when the servants went on their annual picnic to the Escurial, it was supposed to be quite safe to leave the street door on the latch, that they might let themselves in when they returned very late. The murderer must have known this and taken advantage of it; therefore, though Colonel Benalta offered a very large reward, and though the Spanish Government--so great was the public horror--offered, for them, a very large reward, no clue whatever was ever obtained to the murderer.

"A terrible shadow naturally hung over the house in Madrid, and the Benalta family could not bear to remain in a scene which to them was filled with such associations of horror. By the death of the poor lady, Madame Benalta's mother, they had inherited her estates in Andalusia, and they removed to Cordova. There they lived very quietly. From so great a shock Madame Benalta could not entirely rally, and she shrank more than ever from strangers. Besides, her home life was less pleasant than it had been, for Colonel Benalta's temper was sharper and sourer than ever, and even more frequently than before he said to her, 'My dear, you know nothing: you really know nothing at all.'

"Eleven years passed away, melancholy years enough to the mother, but her children grew up strong and happy, and naturally on them the terrible event of their childhood seemed now quite in the far-away past. One day Colonel Benalta was again absent on military duty. Madame Benalta was sitting in her usual chair in her drawing-room at Cordova, and Carlos, then a young man of one-and-twenty, was standing by her, when the door opened and Mademoiselle Benalta came in. 'Oh, mother,' she said, 'I've been taking advantage of our father's absence to arrange his room, and in one of his drawers I have found a little relic of our childhood, which I think perhaps may be interesting to you: it seems to be a copy which Carlos must have written when he was a little boy.' Madame Benalta took the paper out of her daughter's hand and saw, 'Work while it is to-day, for thou knowest not what may happen to-morrow,' and at the bottom the signature 'Carlos Benalta, September 22nd,' and she turned it round, and there, at the back, in the well-known trembling hand, was written, 'For my dear grandson Carlos Benalta, to be given to him when I am dead.' Madame Benalta had just presence of mind to crumple up the paper and throw it into the back of the fire, and then she fell down upon the floor in a fit.

"From that time Madame Benalta never had any health. She was unable to take any part in the affairs of the house, and scarcely seemed able to show any interest in anything. Her husband had less patience than ever with her, and more frequently abused her and said, 'My dear, you know nothing;' but it hardly seemed to affect her now; her life seemed ebbing away together with its animation and power, and she failed daily. That day-year Madame Benalta lay on her death-bed, and all her family were collected in her room to witness her last moments. She had received the last sacraments, and the supreme moment of life had arrived, when she beckoned her husband to her. As he leant over her, in a calm solemn voice, distinctly audible to all present, she said, 'My dear, you have always said that I knew nothing: now I have known two things: I have known how to be silent in life, and how to pardon in death,' and so saying, she died.

"It is unnecessary to explain what Madame Benalta knew."

In later years, in Spain, I have read a little book by Fernan Caballero, "El Silencio en la Vita, e el Perdono en la Muerte," but even in the hands of the great writer the story wants the simple power which it had when told by Sir John.

* * * * *

The winter of 1864-65 was a terribly anxious one at Holmhurst. My mother failed daily as the cold weather came on, and was in a state of constant and helpless suffering. I never could bear to be away from her for a moment, and passed the whole day by the side of her bed or chair, feeding her, supporting her, chafing her inanimate limbs, trying by an energy of love to animate her through the weary hours of sickness, giddiness, and pain. We were seldom able to leave one room, the central one in the house, and had to keep it as warm as was possible. My recollection lingers on the months of entire absence from all external life spent in that close room, sitting in an armchair, pretending to read while I was ceaselessly watching. My mother was so much worse than she had ever been before, that I was never very hopeful, but strove never to look beyond the present into the desolate future, and, while devoting my whole thoughts and energies to activity for her, was always able to be cheerful. Still I remember how, in that damp and misty Christmas, I happened to light upon the lines in "In Memoriam"--

"With trembling fingers did we weave The holly round our Christmas hearth; A rainy cloud possess'd the earth, And sadly fell our Christmas Eve."

And how wonderfully applicable they seemed to our case.

To MY SISTER.

"Holmhurst, Dec. 17, 1864.--How we envy you the warmth of Italy! Had we known how severe a winter this was likely to be, we also should have started for Italy at all risks, and I feel that I have been very wrong ever to have consented to the mother's staying in England, though she seemed so weary of travelling and so much better in health, that I could not believe the effect would be so bad. The cold is most intense. After a month of wet, we have had two days of snow with black east wind, and now it is pouring again, but the rain freezes as it falls.

"The dear mother is perfectly prostrated by the cold, and looks at least twenty years older than in the summer. She has great and constant pain, and trembles so greatly as to be quite unable to feed herself, and she can do nothing whatever all day, so that she is very miserable. Of course I am dreadfully and constantly anxious about her, and the dread of paralysis haunts me night and day. I need not say how sweet, and gentle, and uncomplaining my poor darling is, but one can see she suffers greatly, and 'the pleasures of an English winter,' which some of the family have always been urging her to enjoy, consist in an almost total non-existence on her part, and constant watching on mine."

Gradually the consciousness came to all around her that the only chance of my mother's recovery would be from taking her abroad. How I longed to follow the advice given in "Kotzebue's Travels" when he urges us to take pattern by our ancestors, who were content to sit still and read the injunction in their Bibles, "Let not your flight be in the winter." Yet this year even poor Lea, generally so averse to leaving home, urged us to set off. Then came the difficulty of how to go, and where. We decided to turn towards Pau and Biarritz, because easier of access than Cannes, and because the journeys were shorter: and then there was the constant driving down to look at the sea, and the discovery that, when it was calm enough, my mother was too ill to move, and when she was better, the sea was too rough. At last, on the 20th of January, we left home in the evening.

To MY SISTER.

"Bordeaux, Jan. 28, 1865.--I cannot say what a comfort it is, amid much else that is sad and trying, to think of you safe at Palazzo Parisani, in the home of many years, with the devoted auntie and the two old domestic friends to share your interests and sorrows and joys--so much left of the good of life, so much to gild the memory of the past. I know how you would feel the return to Rome at first--the desolate room, the empty chair, the unused writing-table; and then how you would turn to 'gather up the fragments that remain,' and to see that even the darkest cloud has its silver lining.... No, you cannot wish your mother back. In thinking of her, you will remember that if she were with you now, it would not be in the enjoyment of Rome, of Victoire, and Parisani, but in cheerless London rooms, with their many trials of spirits and temper. Now all those are forgotten by her, for

'Who will count the billows past, If the shore be won at last'?

"And for yourself, you are conscious that you are in the place where she would have you be, and that if she can still be with you invisibly, her life and your life may still be running on side by side, and yours now giving to her unclouded eyes the pleasure it never could have given when earthly mists obscured them.

"I often think of Christian Andersen's story of the mother who was breaking her heart with grief for the loss of her only child, when Death bade her look into his mirror, and on one side she saw the life of her child as it would have been had it remained on earth, in all the misery of sorrow and sickness and sin; and on the other, the glorified life to which it was taken; and then the mother humbly gave thanks to the All-Wise, who chose for her, and could only beg forgiveness because she had wished to choose for herself.

"Do you know, my Esmeralda, that great sorrow has been very near me too? My sweetest mother has been very, very ill, and even now she is so little really better, that I am full of anxiety about her. From the New Year she was so ill at Holmhurst from the cold and snow, that it was decided that we must take the first available moment for going abroad. But we were packed up and waiting for more than a fortnight before her health and the tempests allowed us to start.

"Her passage on the 21st was most unfortunate, for a thick fog came on, which long prevented the steamer from finding the narrow entrance of Calais harbour, and the boat remained for two hours swaying about outside and firing guns of distress every ten minutes. These were answered by steamers in port, and the great alarm-bell of Calais tolled incessantly. At last another steamer was sent out burning red lights, and guided the wanderer in. My poor mother was quite unable to stand from the cold and fatigue when she was landed, and the journey to Paris, across the plains deep in snow, was a most anxious one. During the three days we spent at Paris, she was so ill that I had almost given up all hope of moving her, when a warm change in the weather allowed of our reaching Tours, where we stayed two more days.

"Tours is a fine old town, and is the place where our grandfather died. I saw his house, quite a palace, now the museum. We slept again at Angoulême, a very striking place, the old town rising out of the new, a rocky citadel surrounded with the most beautiful public walks I ever saw out of Rome, and a curious cathedral. This Bordeaux is a second Paris, only with a river like an arm of the sea, and immense quays, full of bustle and hubbub, like the Carminella at Naples."

"Hotel Victoria, Pau, Feb. 2.--On Monday we made the easiest move possible from Bordeaux to Arcachon, a most quaint little watering-place. The hotel was a one-storied wooden house, with an immensely broad West-Indian-like balcony, in which three or four people could walk abreast, descending on one side to the strip of silver sand which alone separated it from the wave-less bay of the sea called the Bassin d'Arcachon;[253] the other opening into the forest--sixty or seventy miles of low sandhills covered with arbutus, holly, and pine. Near the village, quantities of lodging-houses, built like Swiss châlets, are rising up everywhere in the wood, without walls, hedges, or gardens, just like a fairy story, and in the forest itself it is always warm, no winds or frosts penetrating the vast living walls of green. If the mother had been better, I should have liked to linger at Arcachon a few days, but we could not venture to remain so far from a doctor. Here at Pau we live in a deluge: it pours like a ceaseless waterspout; yet, so dry is the soil, that the rain never seems to make any impression. Pau is dreadfully full and enormously expensive. I see no beauty in the place, the town is modern with a modernised castle, the surrounding country flat, with long white roads between stagnant ditches, the 'coteaux' low hills in the middle distance covered with brushwood, the distant view scarcely ever visible. We are surrounded by cousins. Mrs. Taylor[254] is most kind--really as good-natured as she is ugly, and, having lived here twenty years, she knows everything about the place. Dr. Taylor is a very skilful physician. Edwin and Bertha Dashwood are also here with their five children, and Amelia Story with her father and step-mother.[255]

"Alas! my sweetest mother is terribly weak, and has hitherto only seemed to lose strength from day to day. She cannot now even walk across the room, nor can she move from one chair to another without great help. We are a little cheered, however, to-day by Dr. Taylor."

To MISS LEYCESTER.

"Pau, Feb. 12.--For the last two days my dearest mother's suffering has been most sad, without intermission.... This evening Dr. Taylor has told me how very grave he thinks her state, and that, except for the knowledge of her having so often rallied before, there is no hope of her precious life being restored to us. God has given her back before from the brink of the grave, and it might be His will to do so again; this is all we have to cling to. Her weakness increases daily. She cannot now help herself at all.... Her sweetness, her patience, the lovely expression of her countenance, her angelic smile, her thankfulness for God's blessings even when her suffering is greatest, who can describe? These are the comfort and support which are given us.

"I do not gather that the danger is quite immediate; the dread is a stupor, which may creep on gradually.... I am always able to be cheerful in watching over her, though I feel as if the sunshine was hourly fading out of my life."

To MY SISTER.

"Pau, Feb. 14.--My last account will have prepared you for the news I have to give. My sweetest mother is fast fading away.... Lea and I have been up with her all the last two nights, and every minute of the day has been filled with an intensity of anxious watching. The frail earthly tabernacle is perishing, but a mere look at my dearest one assures us that her spirit, glorious and sanctified, has almost already entered upon its perfected life. Her lovely smile, the heavenly light in her eyes, are quite undescribable.

"All through last night, as I sat in the red firelight, watching every movement, it seemed to me as if the end was close at hand. Her hymn rang in my ears--so awfully solemn and real:--

'It may be when the midnight Is heavy upon the land, And the black waves lying dumbly Along the sand; When the moonless night draws close, And the lights are out in the house; When the fires burn low and red, And the watch is ticking loudly Beside the bed: Though you sleep, tired out, on your couch, Still your heart must wake and watch In the dark room, For it may be that at midnight I will come.'

When the Master does come, she will be always found waiting. Has not my darling kept her lamp burning all her life long? Surely when the Bridegroom cometh, she will enter into the kingdom.

"I cannot tell how soon it will be. I have no hope now of her being given back to me. It is a solemn waiting. Oh! my Esmeralda, when you hear that the hour has come, pity, pray for her unutterably desolate son."

To MISS LEYCESTER.

"Feb. 17.--There has been an unexpected rally. Two days ago, when I was quite hopeless and she lay motionless, unconscious of earth, Dr. Taylor said, 'Wait, you can do nothing: if this trance is to end fatally, you can do nothing to arrest it; but it may still prove to be an extraordinary effort of Nature to recruit itself.' And truly, at eight o'clock yesterday morning, after sixty hours of trance, she suddenly opened her eyes, smiled and spoke naturally. I had just left the room, when Lea called me back--'She is talking to me.' I could scarcely believe it; yet, when I went in, there my darling sat in her bed, with a sweet look of restored consciousness and returning power.

"It was like a miracle.

"She remembers nothing now of her illness. She does not think she has suffered. During the last night she says she was constantly saying the seventy-first Psalm. Almost the first thing she said after rallying was, 'I have not been alone: your Uncle Penrhyn and your Aunt Kitty[257] have been here, supporting me all through the night.'

"Our nice simple little landlady had just been to the church to pray for her, and, coming back to find her restored, believes it is in answer to her prayers.

"I did not know what the agony of the last three days was till they were over. While they lasted, I thought of nothing but to be bright for her, that she might only see smiles, to prevent Lea from giving way, and to glean up every glance and word and movement; but to-day I feel much exhausted."

To MY SISTER.

"Pau, Feb. 21.--My darling has been mercifully restored to me for a little while--a few days' breathing space; and yet I could not count upon this even while it lasted; I could not dwell upon hope, I could not look forward--the frail frame is so very frail. I cannot think she is given to me for long: I only attempt to store up the blessings of each day now against the long desolate future.

"Last Sunday week she fell into her trance. It lasted between sixty and seventy hours. During this time she was almost unconscious. She knew me, she even said 'Dear' to me once or twice, and smiled most sweetly as she did so, but otherwise she was totally unconscious of all around her, of day and night, of the sorrow or anxiety of the watchers, of pain or trouble. A serene peace overshadowed her, a heavenly sweetness filled her expression, and never varied except to dimple into smiles of angelic beauty, as if she were already in the company of angels.

"But for the last sixteen hours the trance was like death. Then the doctor said, 'If the pulse does not sink and if she wakes naturally, she may rally.' This happened. At eight the next morning, my darling gently awoke and was given back into life. This was Thursday, and there were three days' respite. But yesterday she was evidently failing again, and this morning, while Dr. Taylor was in the room, the trance came on again. For ten minutes her pulse ceased to beat altogether.... Since then she has lain as before--scarcely here, yet not gone--quite happy--between heaven and earth.

"I believe now that if my darling is taken I can give thanks for the exceeding blessedness of this end.

"Meantime it is again a silent watching, and, as I watch, the solemn music of the hymns that my darling loves comes back to me, and I repeat them to myself. Now these verses are in my mind:--

'Have we not caught the smiling On some beloved face, As if a heavenly sound were wiling The soul from our earthly place?-- The distant sound and sweet Of the Master's coming feet.

We may clasp the loved one faster, And plead for a little while, But who can resist the Master? And we read by that brightening smile That the tread we may not fear Is drawing surely near.'

And then, in the long watches of the night, all the golden past comes back to me--how as a little child I played round my darling in Lime Wood--how the flowers were our friends and companions--how we lived in and for one another in the bright Lime garden: of her patient endurance of much injustice--of her sweet forgiveness of all injuries--of her loving gratitude for all blessings--of her ever sure upward-seeking of the will and glory of God: and my eye wanders to the beloved face, lined and worn but glowing with the glory of another world, and while giving thanks for thirty years of past blessing, shall I not also give thanks that thus--not through the dark valley, but through the sunshine of God--my mother is entering upon her rest?

"God will give me strength: I feel quite calm. I can think only how to soothe, how to cheer, how to do everything for her."

"Feb. 26.--It is still the same; we are still watching. In the hundred and twelfth hour of her second trance, during which she had taken no nourishment whatever, my mother spoke again, but it was only for a time. You will imagine what the long watchings of this death-like slumber have been, what the strange visions of the past which have risen to my mind in the long, silent nights, as, with locked doors (for the French would insist that all was over), I have hovered over the pillow on which she lies as if bound by enchantment. Now comes before me the death-bed scene of S. Vincent de Paul, when, to the watchers lamenting together over his perpetual stupor, his voice suddenly said, 'It is but the brother that goes before the sister.' Then, as the shadows lighten into dawn, Norman Macleod's story of how he was watching by the death-bed of his beloved one in an old German city, and grief was sinking into despair, when, loud and solemn, at three in the morning, echoed forth the voice of the old German watchman giving the hours in the patriarchal way--'Put your trust in the Divine Three, for after the darkest night cometh the break of day.'

"Last night the trance seemed over. All was changed. My sweetest one was haunted by strange visions; to her excited mind and renewed speech, every fold of the curtains was a spirit, every sound an alarm. For hours I sat with her trembling hands in mine, soothing her with the old hymns that she loves. To a certain extent, however, there is more hope, more of returning power. Is it a superstition to think that she began to revive when in the churches at Holmhurst, Hastings, Hurstmonceaux, Alton, and Pau prayers (and in many cases how earnest) were being offered up for her restoration?

"Two P.M.--My darling has been sitting up in bed listening to sweet voices, which have been singing to her; but they were no earthly voices which she heard.

"Ten P.M.--She has just declared that she sees Ruth Harmer (a good, sweet girl she used to visit, who died at Hurstmonceaux) standing by her bedside. 'It is Ruth Harmer--look at Ruth Harmer,' she said. But it was not a voice of terror; it was rather like the apostolic question, 'Who are these who are arrayed in white robes, and whence come they?' There has also been a time when she has spoken of 'dear Holmhurst, dear beautiful Holmhurst,' in the most touching way."

"Feb. 27.--She has fallen into a third stupor, deeper than the others; there is no sign of breath, the heart does not beat, the pulse does not beat, the features have sunk. I alone now declare with certain conviction that she lives. The shadows are closing around us, yet I feel that we are in the immediate presence of the Unseen, and that the good Ruth Harmer is only one of the many angels watching over my sweetest one. Years ago she told me that when dying she wished her favourite hymn--

'How bright those glorious spirits shine,--'

to be sung by her bedside; was it these words which she heard the angels sing to her? Oh! my Esmeralda, are you praying that I may endure while it is necessary to do everything for her, only so long? How strange that the scene which I have so often imagined should be in a country hitherto unknown, the only relations near having been strangers before; yet the simple French people here are very sad for us, and there is much sympathy."

"March 10.--It has been many days since I have ventured to write: it has been so difficult to say anything definite, with the constant dread of another relapse, which we have thought must come every day: yet I think I may now venture to write in thanksgiving that my mother is restored to me from the brink of the grave. It seemed quite impossible that she could come back, as if she must enter the world on the portals of which she had been so long resting. Doctor and nurse gave up all hope; and at last the nurse went out, saying all must be over when she returned in three hours' time. In those three hours the remedies began to take effect, the dead limbs to revive, the locked mouth to open, the closed eyes to see, the hands to feel. It had been a death-like trance of a hundred and ninety-six hours altogether--ten days and nine nights. She remembers nothing of it now, and nothing of the illness which came before, but a gradual revival and awakening of all her powers is going on. It has been less painful to her throughout than to any one, and it is so still.

"Dr. Taylor is made Sir Alexander. He and Lady Taylor have been most kind to us--could not have been more so. It has been interesting to see so much of her, the last survivor of our father's generation in the family, and one who, living constantly at Hurstmonceaux, was present through all the old family crises and conflicts, which she narrates with much of sound sense and observation. I shall hope to write down much of her recollections, and shall begin in good earnest to collect the memorials of that earlier family period, quite as curious in its way as many later ones."[259]

"Pau, March 27.--My sweet mother continues slightly better certainly, but in a most fragile and harassing state of health. I never feel happy in leaving her, even for half-an-hour. On some days she is better and almost able to enjoy reading a few words, or being read to a little: on others, as to-day, the trembling increases to such a degree as to prevent her occupying herself in any way. I need not say how beautiful are her faith and love, how increasing the beatitude of her inner, her heavenly life. 'Oh, how long it is since I have been at church,' she said last night. 'But you are always at church in your soul, darling,' I said. 'Yes,' she answered, 'that is the greater part of my day--meditation and prayer, and in the night I say my hymns and texts.' On my birthday she gave me a solemn blessing. Each day I watch her every look and movement. Truly I feel as if the pulse of her life beat into mine. She does not see many people, but our sweet little cousin Lady Dashwood, Lady Taylor, and Lady Charles Clinton come occasionally.

"Pau is the most unattractive place I ever was in, and it pours or snows almost incessantly. The 'society' is small, good, and uninteresting, and snubs the immense remainder of the Anglo-Pau world with hearty goodwill.

"For some days we have been very sad about dear Emma Leycester, who has been terribly ill: at least I have been, for I think the mother has scarcely taken in the great cause for alarm."

I think the name of this most dear cousin, Emma Leycester (Charlotte's much younger sister) has scarcely been mentioned in these memoirs, and yet there was scarcely any one who had a tenderer place in our home life and thoughts, or to whom we were more devoted. Perhaps the very fact of omitting her shows how entirely she must have kept aloof from all family squabbles and disorders, whilst rejoicing in all our pleasures and sorrowing in all our griefs. She was never strong, and I always recollect her as a semi-invalid, yet more animated and cheerful than most people in strong health, and able, from the very fact of weakness removing her from the general turmoil of all that was going on around her, to give her full attention and sympathy to the things she could participate in. Small in person, she was of a most sweet countenance, with grey hair, a most delicate complexion, and bright eyes, full of expression and humour--

"Her angel's face As the great eye of heaven, shyned bright, And made a sunshine in the shady place."[260]

As a child, in her visits to Stoke and Lime, I was quite devoted to her, and in the persecutions of my boyhood was comforted by her unfailing sympathy. When at Southgate, the greatest pleasure of my London excursions was that they sometimes ended at "Charlotte and Emma's house" in Wilton Crescent, and that I often went to have tea with the dear Emma, who was already gone to rest upon the sofa in her own little sitting-room. When I was at Oxford she came to visit me there; and latterly the loss of her own brother and sister had drawn this sister-like cousin nearer to my mother as well as to myself.

To MISS LEYCESTER.

"Pau, April 6, 1865, 8 P.M.--I must write one little line of love this evening: the sad news reached us two hours ago, and you will know how we are mourning with you. I had just a hope, and can hardly feel yet that dearest Emma's sweet presence, her loving tender sympathy and interest, are taken from us in this world: but may we not feel that she is perhaps still near us in her perfected state, and to you and to my darling mother even the visible separation may be a very short one, it can only be a few years--long here, but like a moment to her, till the meeting again.

"I am glad to think of you at Toft, and of her resting there, where we can visit the grave. I feel so deeply not being able to be with you, or to do anything for you, as dearest Emma so often said I should do for her, if you were taken from her.

"The news came at tea-time. It was impossible to conceal it. The mother had had a suffering day, and was utterly crushed. We put her to bed at once, and very soon she literally 'fell asleep for sorrow,' and I, watching beside her, heard her lips murmur, 'O blessed are they who die in Thee, O Lord, for they rest from their labours.'"

"L'Estelle, April 8.--My mother continued so seriously ill up to yesterday morning, that I was certain if she were not moved at once, I must not hope she ever would be. Dr. Taylor declined to take the responsibility, but I felt some one must act; so I sent for a large carriage, and had her carried down into it like a baby, and brought off here, only two hours' easy drive from Pau. Before we had gone six miles she began to revive, was carried to her room without exhaustion, and to-day opens her eyes on a lovely view of the snow mountains above the chestnut woods, with a rushing river and the old convent of Bétharram in the gorge, which is a wonderful refreshment after having lived in a narrow street, and seen nothing but a white-washed wall opposite for eleven weeks. Already she is better."

To MY SISTER.

"L'Estelle, April 9.--You will have heard of our great sorrow.... A week ago dearest Emma's fever passed and took the form of prayer, which, as Charlotte says, 'flowed like a river.' Once she said, 'I have been fed with angels' food; I did not ask for it, I could not, but I have had it.' Her last resting-place is at Toft. Charlotte was able to be present.... I feel that, though we have many still to love, no one can ever fill the same place in our hearts."

During my mother's long illness at Pau, I naturally thought of nothing, and saw scarcely any one, but her. In the last three weeks, however, after her rally, and before the last alarm, I saw a few people, amongst them very frequently Lady Vere Cameron, whose husband, Cameron of Lochiel, had been known to my mother from girlhood. Through Lady Vere, I was introduced to a remarkable circle then at Pau, which formed a society entirely occupied with spiritualism. Most extraordinary were the experiences they had to narrate. I have kept some notes of my acquaintance with them:--

"Pau, March 1865.--When I was at Lady Vere Cameron's, the subject of table-turning was brought forward, and I then said that I had been told that I was a medium, meaning merely with reference to tables. We sat down to a table and it turned. Soon it began to rap violently, and a scratching noise was heard underneath. This I believe to have been owing to some ventriloquism on the part of Ferdinand Russell, who was present, but it excited Lady Vere very much.

"Some days after I had a note from Lady Vere to desire that I would come to be introduced to her 'particular friend,' Mrs. Gregory, at a party in her own house. As I knew that Mrs. Gregory was a great spiritualist and much occupied with the subject, I naturally supposed that this desire to make my acquaintance was due to the table-turning at Lady Vere's, and I went expecting to find a séance.

"But it was a large party, a great number of people whom I had never seen before. Mrs. Gregory had the odd expression of always looking for something behind her. She spoke at once of my being a medium, and then said in an excited manner, 'But are you far advanced? are you like me? when a friend is going to die, do you see it written before you in letters of light there?'--pointing into vacancy. 'No,' I said, 'certainly not: that never happens to me.' Speaking of this afterwards to a Mr. Hamilton, he bade me beware, for very unpleasant things often happened at Mrs. Gregory's séances, or, if they did not happen, every one present believed that they did--that hands appeared, &c.: that his cousin, Mrs. H. of S., had received messages from her child who was dead: that others also had received messages from their dead relations. The meetings were always solemnly opened with prayer.

"At Mrs. White Hedges' I saw Mrs. H. She said that she also was certain that I was a medium, and asked whether I did not frequently have messages from the other world. I said 'No,' and that I did not wish to have any. 'What,' she said, with a look of great surprise, 'you do not wish, then, for the regeneration of the world; for if you did you would feel that it can only be brought about through the instrumentality of spirits.'"

"April 4.--At Lady Robinson's[262] I again met Mrs. Gregory, who asked me to come on the 6th to help her to turn a table, and see if I should receive any messages. I agreed to do so, understanding that nothing more was intended than she said. Afterwards I sat by Miss N. L., who said, 'I see that terrible woman has been getting hold of you. Pray don't go. You don't know what you will see. Every one who goes is beguiled by small pretexts till they see the most appalling things. It can only be through the devil.'

"Persuaded by Miss N. L., I went to Mrs. Gregory and said, 'Mrs. Gregory, do tell me exactly what you expect to happen on Thursday, because I do not wish to see anything.'

"'Oh, you are a coward, are you?' said both Mrs. Gregory and Mrs. Alexander, who was sitting near her.

"'Yes, certainly I am a coward about trifling with the supernatural. It is not because I do not believe that spirits can return from the dead, but because I do believe it that I would rather not come, if you expect to see anything.'

"'Well, I can only say that both seeing and receiving messages are the greatest possible comfort to me: it is only that which keeps me in my right mind,' said Mrs. Gregory.

"I answered that I should dislike being upset for the ordinary and practical duties of life by being led to dwell constantly upon the supernatural.

"'That is precisely what strikes me as the greatest advantage,' said Mrs. Gregory; 'surely one cannot think too much of the other world. To feel that spirits are constantly watching you, and grieving or rejoicing over you, must surely tend to keep you from a great deal of evil. I have known many infidels entirely converted to a new and Christian life by what they have seen with me--Mr. Ruskin, for instance. I asked Mr. Ruskin one day what he believed, and he answered "Simply nothing." He afterwards came to my house several times when I had séances, and then he took my hands, and with tears in his eyes said, "Mrs. Gregory, I cannot thank you enough for what you have shown me: it will change my whole life, for because I have seen I believe." Mr. Pickersgill the artist was another instance. Certainly hands often appear to me, but I like to see them. If you had lost any one who was a part of your life, would you not like to know that you were receiving a message from those you loved? You need not be afraid of the messages I receive. Just before I came here I received this message--"Keep close to God in prayer." There was nothing dreadful in that, was there? Was not that a beautiful message to receive. But sometimes the spirits are conflicting. There are good and bad spirits. If the messages are not such as we should wish, then we know the bad spirits are there. All this is in the Bible, "Ye shall try the spirits, whether they be good or evil." This is one of the means of grace which God gives us: surely we ought not to turn aside from it.'

"Afterwards I asked Lady Robinson her experience. She said that she had been at one of the séances, but nothing appeared and 'the Indicator' gave nothing decided. She said it was conducted most seriously, with all religious feeling. She described Mrs. Gregory as not only praying at the time, but living in a state of prayer, and she believed that the messages were granted in answer to real faith. She said quantities of people had seen the hands appear. Mrs. Gregory had a very large séance at Sir William Gomm's in London, and Lady Gomm asked for an outward sign before she would believe. A bodiless hand then appeared, and, taking up a vase with a plant in it from a china dish upon the table, set it on the floor, and then breaking a flower from the plant, came and laid it in Lady Gomm's lap: all the company saw it.

"I told the Taylors what I had heard. Sir Alexander said that he thought the chief good of such a clever physician as Mrs. Gregory's husband (Dr. Gregory of the powders) appearing would be to write a prescription for the living."

While we were at Pau, my sister wrote much to me upon the death of Cardinal Wiseman, to whom she was greatly devoted, and whom I have always believed to be a most sagacious and large-hearted man. His burly figure upon the sands at Eastbourne used to be very familiar to me in my boyhood. I heard Monsignor Capel, who afterwards attained some celebrity, preach his funeral sermon at Pau.

"Thirty years ago," he said, "there were only six Catholic churches in London; now there are forty-six. Then there were six Catholic schools in London; now there are at least three in each of these parishes--one for boys, one for girls, and one for infants. Then there were only 30,000 Catholics in all England; now there are two millions, one-ninth of the whole population of the country. Then there were no religious Orders except the Jesuit Fathers, who had lingered on from the Reformation, flying from one Catholic house to another, and administering the sacraments in fear and trembling; now there are in London the followers of St. Francis and St. Dominic, the Passionist Fathers, the Redemptorists, and at least twelve nunneries of English ladies. All this change is in a great measure due to Cardinal Wiseman, the founder of the English hierarchy. He entered on his labours in troublous times: with the enthusiasm and love of splendid ritual which he imbibed as a Spanish boy, with the ecclesiastical learning of Italy, with the dogmatic perseverance and liberality which he drank in with his English education. He chose as the title of his bishopric the see of the last martyred English bishop, and he also thirsted for martyrdom."

These notes are curious as showing how the rapid growth of Catholicism in England, which we Protestants are so unwilling to recognise, had advanced under Cardinal Wiseman's leadership.

At L'Estelle my mother daily revived, and was soon able to sit out on the sunny balcony, for the valleys of the Pyrenees were already quite hot, though the trees were leafless and the mountains covered with snow. It was long, however, before I ventured to leave her to go beyond the old convent of Bétharram, with its booths of relics and its calvary on a hill. When she was stronger, we moved to Argelès, a beautiful upland valley, whence excursions are very easy to Cauterets and Luz. Afterwards we visited Eaux Chaudes and Eaux Bonnes; but though the snow was too deep to allow of mountain rambles, the heat was already too intense for enjoyment of the valleys. We had left Pau without a sign of vegetation, and when we came back three weeks later, it was in all the deadest, heaviest green of summer. So it was a great refreshment to move at once to Biarritz, with its breezy uplands, covered with pink daphne, and its rolling, sparkling, ever-changing sea, so splendid in colour. To my mother, Biarritz was a complete restorative, and she was able there to take up her drawing again, to enjoy seeing friends, and to enter into the interests and peculiarities of the curious Basque country.

We visited many of the Basque churches, which are always encircled within by three galleries, except over the altar. These galleries are of black oak. The men sit in the galleries, and the women below, and they enter at different doors. In the churchyards the graves have all little crosses or Basque head-stones with round tops, and they are all planted with flowers. The houses all have wide overhanging roofs and external wooden galleries. Bidart and Cambo are good specimens of Basque villages. Bidart is a beautiful place on the road to S. Jean de Luz, and has a church with the characteristic overhanging belfry and high simple buttresses. A wide entry under the organ-loft is the only entrance to the church. In the hollow below is a broken bridge reflected in a pool, which is golden at sunset, and which, with the distant sea and sands, and the old houses with their wooden balconies scattered over the hillside, forms a lovely picture. Here I stayed one evening to draw with Miss Elizabeth Blommart, an acquaintance we made at Biarritz (afterwards our friend for many years), while my mother and Lea walked on, and descended from the opposite hill upon the sands. We had often been told of the treacherous waves of Bidart, but could not have believed in danger--so distant, beyond the long reaches of sand, seemed the calm Atlantic, glistening in the last rays of sunlight. To our horror, when we had nearly finished our drawing, we looked up, and saw my mother and Lea coming towards us pouring with salt water from cloaks, bonnets, everything. They had been walking unsuspiciously on the sands three-quarters of a mile from the sea, when suddenly, without any warning, a great wave surrounded them. My mother was at once swept off her feet, but Lea, with her usual presence of mind, caught her cloak and rolled it round her arm, and plunging herself deep into the sand, resisted the water and held her mistress till the wave receded, when they made their escape. A few days afterwards an Englishman with his little dog was walking in the Bay of Bidart; the man escaped, but the dog was swept out to sea.

Cambo is two hours' drive from Biarritz--a most pleasant watering-place on a high terrace above the Nive, with pergolas of vines and planes, a churchyard which is a perfect blaze of lilies and roses, and an inn-garden which is full of lovely flowers. Close by is the opening to the Pas de Roland, a grand little gorge where the Nive rushes through the mountains--a finer Dovedale. A rocky path ascends by the side of the stream and climbs a succession of steeps to la roche percée, through which it passes to a little hamlet and old bridge. Eighteen miles farther is S. Jean de Port, whence one can ride to Roncesvalles.

The whole of this Basque country is full of memorials of the Peninsular War, the events of which in this district are wonderfully well described in the novel of "The Subaltern." There are deep woods and glens which ran down with blood; green lanes (as at Irogne) which were scenes of desperate combats; tombs of English officers, as in the churchyard at Bidart and in the picturesque mayor's garden between Bidart and Biarritz, where a flat stone commemorating three English officers is to be seen under the old apple-trees, overlooking a wide expanse of country. The most dreadful slaughter was near the Negressa Station, where the two armies, having occupied the ridges on either side the lake, suffered frightful carnage. It might have been spared, but in both armies it was then unknown that Napoleon had abdicated, and that peace was proclaimed. Between S. Jean de Luz and the Behobia is a picturesque old château, which was taken by the English after an easy siege, the inhabitants having been forced to fly with such precipitation that everything was abandoned, even the mail-bags which they had just seized being left behind and the contents scattered about on the floor. The first letter the English officer in command picked up was directed to himself and from his own father! He took nothing from the house but a Spanish dictionary from the library, but returning that way three weeks afterwards, found it completely pillaged by the Spanish camp-followers.

The peasantry of the Basque country are most interesting to talk to, and it is strange that more should not have been said and written about them, as their conversation is more full of ancient proverbs and folk-lore than that of the inhabitants of any other part of France. I remember an old Basque woman saying that her language was not only the best, but far the oldest in the world--in fact, it was that which Adam and Eve spoke in Paradise!

Twice, while we were at Biarritz, I made excursions into Spain, crossing the Bidassoa close to the Isle of Pheasants with intense interest. In all the Spain I have seen since, there is nothing more utterly Spanish than the tiny walled town of Fontarabia, with its wooden balconies piled one above another, and its lookout over a blue estuary. Most striking also is Passages--a land-locked bay of the sea with a very narrow opening, which is passed on the way to S. Sebastian.

Our return journey to England in the late spring was very delightful. My mother, in entire enjoyment of her marvellously restored health, and delighting to drink in the full beauties of nature and antiquity, was in no hurry to return to the turmoil of English life. We lingered everywhere, making short half-day journeys, and spending quiet afternoons sketching in the grass-grown streets of half-deserted cities, or driving out in little carriages to grand old châteaux. Thus we first saw S. Emilion, that marvellous place, where the buildings are so mingled with the living rock, that you scarcely can tell where the work of man begins, and where each sculptured cornice glows in late spring with a glory of crimson valerian. In one of the quietest streets of Poitiers, before a cottage door, we bought an old inlaid table, which is one of the pleasantest memorials of our journey. At Amboise we stayed several days in a most primitive but charming hotel, the vision of my dear mother in which often comes back to me, sitting with her psalm-book in a low room with white-washed walls and brick floor, and with a latticed window looking out over the great river glistening in the sunset. My mother liked and admired Amboise[266] more than almost any of our thousand resting-places, and she delighted in the excursions to moated Chenonceaux and to Chambord, where we and Lea had tea and bilberry jam at a delightful little inn which then existed on the outskirts of the forest.

On the 27th of May we reached Holmhurst. One of those curious incidents which are inexplicable had occurred during our absence, and was narrated to us, on our return, by our servants, neighbours, and by Mrs. Hale, the wife of our Hastings doctor. During my mother's illness at Pau, two of our maids, Alice and Jane Lathom, slept, according to their custom, in one of the spare rooms to the front of the house. In the middle of the night they were both aroused by three piercing terrible screams in the room close to the bed. Petrified with horror, they hid under the bed-clothes, and lay thus more dead than alive till morning. With the first streak of dawn they crept down the passage to John Gidman's room, roused him, and told him what had happened. He felt it was certainly an omen that the death they expected had occurred; took the carriage and drove down at once to St. Leonards to Mrs. Hale. Dr. and Mrs. Hale were at breakfast when John Gidman arrived and sent in word that his mistress was dead. When they went out, they found he had received no letter, but had only an inward conviction of the event from what had happened.

It was the same hour at which my mother, waking from her second trance in her room at Pau, had uttered three long piercing screams in her wandering, and said, "Oh, I shall never, never see my dear Holmhurst again!"

There is no explanation to offer.

* * * * *

We had much enjoyment of our little Holmhurst this summer and a constant succession of guests. Amongst those who now came annually were Arthur Stanley and his wife Lady Augusta. To my mother, Augusta Stanley was always a very tender and dutiful niece, and to me a most kind cousin. She rejoiced to aid my mother in acting as a drag to Arthur's ever-increasing impression that the creed of progress and the creed of Christianity were identical. Many people thought that such an intense, almost universal warmth of manner as hers must be insincere, but with her it was perfectly natural. She took the sunshine of court favour, in which they both lived, quite simply, accepting it quietly, very glad that the Royal Family valued her, but never bringing it forward. She was indeed well worthy of the confidence which her royal mistress reposed in her, for though the Queen wrote to her daily, and though she generally came in to breakfast with several sheets in the large well-known handwriting, not one word from them ever transpired to her nearest relation or dearest friend.

What Lord Beaconsfield called "Arthur Stanley's picturesque sensibility" made him care more than Augusta about having royal (i.e. historic) friendships, though he had less personal feeling than she had for the illustrious persons who made them. He was, however, quite devoted to the Queen, to her own personality, and would certainly have been so had she been in any other position of life. The interests of Westminster made him very happy, and he rejoiced in the duty which fell upon him of preserving the Abbey as he received it, furious when it was suggested that some of the inferior and ugly monuments might be removed, or that the peculiar character of the choir (like a Spanish coro) might be altered. Always more a lover of moral than of doctrinal, or even spiritual Christianity, at this time he was beginning to be the victim of a passion for heretics which went on increasing afterwards. The Scotch were delighted with him: they thought he had an enthusiastic admiration for their Church. But he almost equally admired all schismatics from the Church to which he officially belonged, and was almost equally interested in them, and if he could get any one with ever so slight a taint of heresy to preach in the Abbey, it was a great delight to him: he thought it was setting an example of Christian liberality.

* * * * *

My sister left Rome with her aunt at the end of May (1865). At Pisa she took leave of her beloved Victoire, who remained at her own house. When she reached France, weakness prevented her intended visit to Paray le Monial, whence the nuns sent her the following rules for the employment of "The Holy Hour" in acts of reparation for insults offered to our Lord by the sins of men:--

{ Short acts.--"Lord, I believe, help 1. Unbelief { thou mine unbelief." { Faith.--"Lord, increase our faith," &c. 2. Ridicule, mockery. Secret prayers for the scoffers. 3. Irreverence.--Special reverence towards the Blessed Sacrament. 4. Rash judgments.--Acts of reparation to the Sacred Heart. 5. Unlawful opinion.--Silence upon things settled by authority. 6. Careless life.--Act of offering morning and night against frivolous and immoderate words and actions. 7. Love of ease and pleasure.--Simple acts of mortification and self-denial in the course of the day.

Esmeralda was detained for some time by serious illness at Dijon, with the strange symptoms which, three years later, attended her final illness, and which were then inexplicable to all around her. On her recovery, Madame de Trafford met her at Paris, and insisted that she should follow her to her château in Touraine. Hence Esmeralda wrote:--

"Château de Beaujour, June 1865.--You will have heard from Auntie of our arrival in this fairy château.... I have heard much that is wonderful, but what is most striking is to watch the perfect simplicity of a life so gifted as Madame de Trafford's--the three virtues, Faith, Hope, and Charity, that faith which can move mountains, and with it great humility. Madame de Trafford is deeply interested in any details I give her of the last six years: she was really attached to Mama. Here, in her château, she saw that Mama was dying. She turned suddenly round to Mr. Trafford, who was here, and said, 'Ah! elle va mourir--sortons.' She could not bear it, and felt that she must go out into the open air.

"We shall be in London some time next week, with endless affairs to settle. I quite dread the lawyers' deeds, days and weeks of worry, never ending and still beginning.

"I think of you once more in your study, as if a new life were given you, and dear Aunt Augustus in her arm-chair, and everything bright and beautiful around you."

Of this, her first visit to Beaujour, Esmeralda has left a few remarkable notes.

"July 1865.--Madame de Trafford came off to receive us at Paris as soon as she heard we were on our way. Then, when she heard I was so ill at Dijon, she often telegraphed there four times a day to Auntie, to the master of the hotel, to every one, so that they thought at Dijon that I was quite 'une grande personage.' At last, when I was better, we went to Beaujour. Madame de Trafford sent to meet us at Blois, but not her own horses, because they were trop vifs. It was a long drive, though we went at a great pace, for Madame de Trafford had told the coachman he was to drive as fast as possible. At last, in the avenue of poplars, the ruts were so deep that I thought we should have been overturned. Beaujour is a large square house with wings to it. Madame de Trafford herself opened the door, with a handkerchief over her head. 'Ah! vous voilà,' she said, 'c'est bien; il y'a longtemps que je vous attends.'

"The lower part of the château is unfurnished and vast. This Madame de Trafford considers to represent chaos, the chaos of nations. On the upper floor, each room represents a nation. Where she considers there is something wanting to the nation, there is some piece of furniture wanting to the room. When she considers that a nation has too much, the room is over-crowded. Thus in England, Canada, Gibraltar, and Malta are de trop, but India she allows for.

"For us she had a whole suite of rooms newly furnished. I had a bedroom, boudoir, dressing-room, and bath-room, and Auntie had the same. They contained every possible luxury. My bed was the most delicious I ever slept in. Madame de Trafford's power of second-sight had enabled her to see exactly what I liked best.

"All morning we sat in Madame de Trafford's bedroom or mine, and in the evening in the sitting-rooms. All day she talked of the future of Europe. 'Je plane sur l'Europe,' she used to say; and, when she was about to see anything--'Mon second être s'en va.'

"Madame de Trafford is frequently in conflict with the devil. At such moments she is perfectly awful--quite sublime in her grandeur. She will repeat sotto voce what he says to her, suggestions of pride, &c.,--and then, raising herself to her full height, in a voice of thunder will bid defiance to the evil spirit. She spoke of the many things in connection with herself which made people say she was mad, and said she did not feel it safe to have people to stay with her in consequence. I told her that this would be quite impossible, for that even in the week which I had spent with her, I had seen much which others never ought to have the opportunity of seeing and misjudging. She often spoke most severely of my faults, and said that I lived too much for myself. 'Prenez garde,' she said, 'que vous ne passiez pas par cette petite porte, que j'ai vue une fois.' This was the gate of hell. She saw it in a most awful vision--the judged souls, 'qu'ils baissent leurs têtes et passent par cette petite porte.'

"One day the Curé sent up word that the village procession was coming to the gates of the château. On such an occasion an altar is always expected to be prepared. There was a dreadful fuss and hurry, but it had to be done. A foundation of barrels was covered with coloured cloths, on this rose a higher platform, and on that the altar. Workmen were immediately employed to dig up trees and plant them around it, and Clémence was sent to the garden to dig up all the lilies she could find. When the procession arrived, all was ready and the people were delighted."

During this and succeeding visits at Beaujour, Madame de Trafford dictated many remarkable passages in her life to my sister. This she did walking up and down the room, often with her eyes flaming and her arms extended, as in a state of possession. At such times she would often break off her narration and suddenly begin addressing the spirit within her, which answered her in the strange voice, not her own, which sometimes came from her lips. Some of the stories she narrated at these times are of the wildest description, and are probably mere hallucinations, but a vein of truth runs through them all; and her complete biography, as I still preserve it, is a most curious document. Almost all her stories are tinged by her enthusiasm for the Bonaparte family, with whom she had some mysterious connection. They are mingled with strange visions and prophecies, many of which have undoubtedly come true, and her second-sight caused her to foresee, and in one case to prevent, an attack on the life of Napoleon III. She was constantly occupied in works of benevolence--in fact, her whole life was a contest between good and evil. "On joue sur moi," she said, "ce sont les bons et les mauvais esprits." Sometimes, when Esmeralda happened to go suddenly into the room, she would find Madame de Trafford, with livid face and glaring eyes, in horrible personal conflict with an evil spirit--"Prince de cette terre, adore donc ton Créateur et ton Dieu." In a late Life of Jeanne Darc, whose early existence amongst spiritual influences is much like that of Madame de Trafford, Catherine de l'Armagnac, the great friend of Jeanne, is described as resembling her, and the observation is made that this extraordinary power remains in the Armagnac family still. Madame de Trafford was née Martine Larmignac (de l'Armagnac). But it was not only in Jeanne Darc that there was a similarity to the visions, the voices, the inspirations of Madame de Trafford: exactly the same appears in the histories of St. Bridget, St. Catherine of Siena, and Savonarola. The child-prophet Samuel also heard such voices calling to him.

In her "Life," Madame de Trafford says that she was brought up at Saumur, where spirits surrounded and talked to her in her childhood. When she was hungry, she believed that they brought her food. She was starved and ill-treated by her nominal mother, but her nominal father was kind to her. She always loved the poor, and they loved her. She once stole a loaf to give to a poor family. She was dressed in the richest child's frocks and lace till she was seven years old, then they were taken away and poor clothes were given to her. In her solitary life at Saumur she fancied that every one else like herself talked to spirits....

To escape from a marriage with a French Count, and, as she believed, in obedience to the spirits, Martine Larmignac went with the family of Sharpe as governess to England. Here she eventually became the second wife of Mr. Trafford of Wroxham Hall in Norfolk, but even then she never expected happiness in her life. She said that a spirit announced to her before her marriage, "Ton nom pour toi, ta fortune pour les autres, et tu ne seras jamais heureuse." She had two children by Mr. Trafford. She foresaw the deaths of both by her second-sight, and had the agony of watching the fatal hour approaching even when they were well and strong.

During the Crimean war, Madame de Trafford went out to Constantinople with some Irish Sisters of Charity. She was with them during the earthquake which overwhelmed Broussa. At the moment when the Emperor Nicholas is supposed to have died, she alarmed those who were with her by starting up and in her fearful voice of prophecy exclaiming, "Nicholas! arrête toi! tu n'est pas mort: tu as disparu." She always maintained that the Emperor did not die at the time at which his death was announced as having taken place.

One day Madame de Trafford was sitting in her room at Paris, when the spirit told her she was to go--not where she was to go, or why, but simply that she was to set off. She caught up her bonnet and shawl and bade her maid Annette (for she had servants then) to follow her. She went out: she walked: she walked on till she arrived at the railway-station for going to Lyons (Chemin de Fer de Lyon). She still felt she was to go on, but she did not know whither, so she said to the guard that she must pay for her ticket when she left the train, for she could not tell where she should get out. She went on till the railway came to an end, and the railway in those days came to an end at Toulon. Then she got out and went to a hotel and ordered rooms for herself and her maid Annette, and dinner--for they were famished after the long journey. But still she felt restless: she was still convinced that she was not in the right place.

"J'avais arrêté un appartement pour une semaine, mais une voix me dit, 'Pars,' et je savais qu'il y'avait du danger. Je fis appeler la maîtresse de l'hôtel. Je lui dis, 'Je vous payerai tout ce que vous voulez, mais je dois partir. Faites attendre dix minutes la malle-poste pour Marseilles.' J'arrive à Marseilles fatiguée. Je me repose sur un lit. Il faisait déjà nuit. J'appelais ma femme de chambre et je lui dis, 'Je veux sortir.' Je sors. J'avance. Je retourne. Ah, mon Dieu! qu'est ce que c'est? J'ai peur: je tremble: je ne sais pourquoi. 'Annette, suivez-moi,' je dis. J'avance encore. Je monte les rues étroites de Marseilles. J'arrête. Oh, mon Dieu! qu'est que c'est que je vois--une rue! Je ne puis plus avancer, mais qu'est que c'est cette rue? Je tourne: je monte la rue en frémissant. 'Annette, suivez-moi.' J'arrête. Je vois une maison--une fenêtre. La maison est fermée. C'est ici. Je mésure la distance de cette maison à la maison vis-à-vis. Une, deux, trois, quatre. La police me suivait. Ils soupçonnaient quelque chose, mais je disais, 'Qu'est que c'est que cela--une maison, une fenêtre?' La police entre dans la maison, dans cette fenêtre elle y trouva une machine infernale. Napoleon était sauvé: il devait y passer le lendemain."

From her extraordinary powers of second-sight, supernatural gifts were attributed by ignorant persons, and to her own great distress, to Madame de Trafford. The poor around her, both in Touraine and at Paris, often implored her to heal their sick, insisting that she could do so if she would, for she had the power.

"J'allais à la Madeleine un dimanche pour la messe. La fille de mon cocher avait ête bien malade depuis longtemps. Je demandais à mon cocher en descendant à l'église comment se portait sa fille. 'Elle a demandé Madame de Trafford,' disait-il en pleurant, 'jusqu'à son dernier moment.'--'Comment, Florimond,' lui dis-je, 'que voulez vous dire?'--'Elle est morte,' disait il en sanglotant: 'elle est morte hier à minuit.'--'Ah,' disais-je, et je descendais de la voiture. 'Florimond, pourquoi ne m'avez-vous pas fait appeler?' J'entrais à l'église, mais je ne pouvais rester tranquille. Je sentais que je ne pouvais rester pour la messe, et je sortis. Je remonte en voiture. 'Florimond, au grand trot,' lui dis-je, 'chez vous.'--'Chez moi, Madame,' dit-il; 'ah, il est trop tard; ah, si vous étiez venue plutôt, Madame, mais le pauvre enfant a déjà changé,' et le pauvre homme pleurait; ah! combien il aimait cet enfant. Nous arrivons. Je descends vite. Je monte. J'entre. J'ouvre la porte. Déjà on avait placé un linceul sur le corps de la jeune fille: on se preparait à l'ensevelir. La mère et la garde-malade étaient dans la chambre. Je fis sortir la garde. J'approche le lit. Je jette par terre chapeau et mantelle. Je lève le linceul. Ah! je n'avais jamais vu un mort: je ne puis vous dire l'effêt que cela me fit. Déjà depuis si peu d'heures! Il avait treize heures qu'elle était morte, et les levres étaient serrées: tout le contour de la bouche était décoloré. Je m'approchais. 'Seigneur,' dis-je, 'je ne vous ai rien demandé jusqu'à ce jour: je vous demande aujourd'hui la vie de cet enfant. Oh, Seigneur, c'est la fille unique, rendez donc, je vous en supplie, rendez donc cette fille à sa mère.' Alors une voix d'un mauvais esprit me dit, 'Tu peux rendre la vie: tu as le pouvoir.' Mais je répondis, 'Moi, je ne puis rien, je ne suis rien; mais, Seigneur, vous avez le pouvoir, vous seul pouvez tout; rendez donc, je vous supplie, rendez donc cette fille à sa mère.' Je passais la main sur la figure de l'enfant: je le prends par la main. 'Lève-toi,' lui dis-je, et la jeune fille se levait en sursaut! mais ses yeux étaient encore fermés, et tout doucement elle dit ces paroles, 'Madame T.. r.. a.. fford.. je.. vais.. dormir.' Les couleurs revenaient tout doucement dans ses joues. Je me retournais à la mère: 'Votre fille dormait,' dis-je. Je quittais la maison. Je commandais qu'on lui donnait à manger. 'Florimond,' dis-je à mon cocher, 'vous pouvez monter: votre fille n'est pas morte--elle dort.' Je quittais Paris sur-le-champ."[267]

The generosity of Madame de Trafford knew no bounds. Once she went to Bourges. She arrived at the hotel and ordered dinner. The waiter said dinner could not be ready for an hour. She asked what she could do to occupy the hour. The man suggested that she could visit the cathedral. She said she had often seen the cathedral of Bourges: "what else?" The man suggested the convent of Ursuline nuns on the other side of the street. "Yes," she said, she was much interested in education, she was much interested in Ursuline nuns--she would go to them.

A nun showed her everything, and she expressed herself much pleased; but the nun looked very sad and melancholy, and at last Madame de Trafford asked her what made her look so miserable. "Oh," said the nun, "it is from a very peculiar circumstance, which you, as a stranger, could not enter into."--"Never mind," said Madame de Trafford, "tell me what it is?"--"Well," said the nun, "since you insist upon knowing, many convents were founded in the Middle Ages by persons who had very peculiar ideas about the end of the world. They believed that the world could not possibly endure beyond a certain number of years, and they founded their institutions with endowments to last for a time which they believed to be far beyond the possible age of the world. Now our convent was founded on that principle, and the time till which our convent was founded comes to an end to-morrow. To-morrow there are no Ursuline nuns of Bourges: to-morrow we have no convent--we cease to exist."--"Well," said Madame de Trafford, "but is there no other house you could have, where you could be re-established?"--"Oh, yes," said the nun, "there is another house to be had, a house on the other side of the street, which would do very well for a convent, but to establish us there would cost £3000. We are under vows of poverty, we have no money, so it is no use thinking about it."--"Well," said Madame de Trafford, "if you can have the house, it is a very fortunate circumstance that Mr. Trafford sent me a bill for £3000 this morning: there it is. You can have your convent." This story my sister had from the nuns of Bourges: it was her second-sight of the trouble overhanging them which had taken Madame de Trafford to Bourges.

Amongst the most extraordinary of the dictations of Madame de Trafford are those which state that she was really the person (accidentally walking and botanising on those mountains) who appeared out of a dense fog to the two children of La Salette, and whom they took for a vision of the Virgin.

People who have heard our histories of Madame de Trafford have often asked if I have ever seen her myself. I never did. The way in which I have been brought nearest to her was this. One day I had gone to visit Italima and Esmeralda at their little lodging in Chester Terrace, in the most terrible time of their great poverty. I was standing with my sister in the window, when she said, "Oh, how many people there are that I knew in the world who would give me five pounds if they knew what it would be to me now. Oh, how many people there are that would do that, but they never think of it." Esmeralda thought no one was listening, but Italima, who was sitting on the other side of the room, and who was then in the depths of her terrible despair, caught what she was saying, and exclaimed, "Oh, Esmeralda, that is all over; no one will ever give you five pounds again as long as you live."

Three days after I went to see them again. While I was there, the postman's knock was heard at the door, and an odd-looking envelope was brought up, with a torn piece of paper inside it, such as Madame de Trafford wrote upon. On it were these words: "As I was sitting in my window in Beaujour this morning, I heard your voice, and your voice said, 'Oh, how many people there are that I knew in the world who would give me five pounds if they knew what it would be to me now! Oh, how many people there are that would do that, but they never think of it.' So I just slipped this five-pound note into an envelope, and here it is." And in the envelope was a five-pound note.

"J'étais là; telle chose m'advint." I was present on both these occasions. I was there when my sister spoke the words, and I was there when the letter came from Madame de Trafford sending the five-pound note, and repeating not only my sister's words, but the peculiar form of reduplication which she so constantly used, and which is so common in Italy when it is desired to make a thing emphatic.

Esmeralda spent the greater part of the summer at Mrs. Thorpe's, where I frequently visited her. She was soon deep in affairs of every kind, far too much for her feeble frame, as she added incessant religious work to her necessary legal worries. She would go anywhere or bear anything in order to bring over any one to the Roman Catholic Church, and was extraordinarily successful in winning converts. Her brother William had already, I think, been "received," and her little sister-in-law, Mrs. William Hare, was "received" about this time. Esmeralda's most notable success, however, had been in the case of Mr. and Mrs. T. G. When she was living in Sloane Street, she heard accidentally that Mrs. G. was wavering in her religious opinions. Esmeralda did not know her, but she drove immediately to her house at ten o'clock in the morning, and by four o'clock that afternoon not only Mrs. G., but her husband, had been received into the Roman Catholic Church.

Still, Esmeralda never believed that all those who were without the pale of her own Church would be lost. She felt certain of the salvation of every soul that had died in union with God by the indwelling of the Holy Ghost.

Amongst the persons whom I frequently saw when staying with my sister were the singular figures, in quaint dress with silver ornaments, with long hair, and ever booted and spurred as cavaliers, who were known as the Sobieski Stuarts. Their real names were John Hay Allan and Charles Stuart Allan, but my sister recognised them by the names they gave themselves--John Sobieski Stolberg Stuart and Charles Edward Stuart. I believe that they had themselves an unfailing belief in their royal blood. Their father was said to be the son of Charles Edward Stuart and Louise of Stolberg, Countess of Albany, born at Leghorn in 1773. Fear of "the King of Hanover" was described as the reason for intrusting him as a baby to Admiral Allan, whose frigate was off the coast. Allan brought up the boy as his own, and he lived to marry an English lady and leave the two sons I have mentioned. The elder brother died in 1872, and the younger on board a steamer off Bordeaux on Christmas Eve, 1880.

Upon her return to England, Esmeralda found in completion the beautiful monument which she had caused to be erected to her mother in the Catholic Cemetery at Kensal Green. It represents "Our Lady of Sorrows"--a figure of life-size, seated under a tall marble cross, from which the crown of thorns is hanging.

From Esmeralda's private meditations of this summer I extract:--

"July 15, 1865.--Ask for the gift to sorrow only for our Blessed Lord's sake, that truly we may share the divine sorrow of His Blessed Mother, and mingle our tears with hers on Calvary at the foot of the cross."

"August 20, 1865.--Ask for the grace of filial love. Strive to overcome all evil inclinations that are an impediment to filial love, amongst which one of the chief is self-conceit. Make acts of reparation for all the selfconceit of past life. When thoughts of self-conceit enter, let us shut the gates of our hearts against them, and make an act of profound humility and sorrow, seeing our own nothingness and baseness. We must seek for filial love by laying aside all confidence in self, and placing all our confidence in God alone; for all that proceeds from ourselves is corrupt, and our best actions have no merit unless performed solely for God's greater glory, without regard to ourselves."

"August 27, 1865.--Lay at the foot of the cross all secret doubts of God's guidance. It is this secret instinct which is one of the great hindrances to the reign of Jesus in our souls. Let us make an act of the will--'Lord, I believe that Thou lovest to make the souls of men Thy tabernacle; help Thou mine unbelief. I believe that Thou lovest me, in spite of my unworthiness and infidelity. I am blind and poor and naked; I have nothing of myself to offer Thee but what is corrupt and evil, but Thou hast given me by inheritance all the poverty and humility of Thy Blessed Mother, all her sorrows,--and these I offer Thee--Thy gift I give back to Thee. O my Lord, let me learn to know Thee more and more.'"

END OF VOL. II.

Printed by BALLANTYNE, HANSON & CO.

Edinburgh and London

THE STORY OF MY LIFE

VOL. III

From a portrait by Swinton.]

THE STORY OF

MY LIFE

BY

AUGUSTUS J. C. HARE

AUTHOR OF "MEMORIALS OF A QUIET LIFE,"

"THE STORY OF TWO NOBLE LIVES,"

ETC. ETC.

VOLUME III

LONDON GEORGE ALLEN, 156, CHARING CROSS ROAD

1896

[All rights reserved]

Printed by BALLANTYNE, HANSON & CO.

At the Ballantyne Press

CONTENTS

PAGE

ENGLISH PLEASURES AND ROMAN TRIALS 1 LAST YEARS OF ESMERALDA 233 THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CONSPIRACY 273 LAST YEARS WITH THE MOTHER 314 INDEX TO VOLS. I., II. AND III. 421

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

VOL. III

ANNE F. M. L. HARE. From Swinton. (Photogravure) Frontispiece

PAGE THE CORONATION CHAIR, WESTMINSTER 4 BAMBOROUGH CASTLE 9 THE SUNDIAL GARDEN, FORD 12 THE FOUNTAIN, FORD 13 FORD CASTLE, THE TERRACE 28 ELIZABETH, LADY STUART DE ROTHESAY. From a miniature by Miss A. Dixon. (Photogravure) To face 32 THE PASS OF BRACCO 52 AT PORTO VENERE 53 LA SPINA, PISA 62 CONTADINA, VALLEY OF THE SACCO 99 THE BRIDGE OF AUGUSTUS, NARNI 101 THE MEDIÆVAL BRIDGE, NARNI 102 VIEW FROM THE BOBOLI GARDENS, FLORENCE 104 HOLMHURST, FROM THE GARDEN 108 LADY AUGUSTA STANLEY. (Photogravure) To face 110 ALTON BARNES CHURCH 111 BODRYDDAN 124 S. REMY 137 FROM MAISON S. FRANÇOIS, CANNES 138 BOCCA WOOD, CANNES 140 MAISON S. FRANÇOIS, CANNES 141 MARIA HARE. (Line engraving) To face 142 CAGNES 145 ANTIBES 147 LE PUY 150 ROYAT 151 IN THE DEAN'S GARDEN, CANTERBURY 156 ARTHUR PENRHYN STANLEY, DEAN OF WESTMINSTER. (Photogravure) To face 158 COURTYARD, DEANERY, WESTMINSTER 160 PALACE GARDEN, PETERBOROUGH 163 FONTAINES 184 ARC DE S. CESAIRE, ALISCAMPS, ARLES 185 AT SAVONA 186 SESTRI 189 CASTLE OF ESTE 227 PETRARCH'S TOMB, ARQUA 230 TOMB OF THE COUNT OF CASTELBARCO, VERONA 231 ESMERALDA'S GRAVE 271 MARY STANLEY. (Photogravure) To face 282 JOIGNY 316 PORTE D'ARROUX, AUTUN 321 FORD CASTLE, THE LIBRARY 325 BAR-LE-DUC 334 BRIDGE OF BAR-LE-DUC 335 MANTUA 337 VICENZA 339 VICENZA FROM MONTE BERICO 340 THE PRATO DELLA VALLE, PADUA 341 SIENA 342 S. GEMIGNANO 343 THE HÔTEL DE LONDRES DURING THE FLOOD 349 S. ANTONIO, PISA, DURING THE FLOOD 355 VIEW FROM THE VIA GREGORIANA 361 NEMI 369 TIVOLI 371 BRACCIANO 375 GRAVE OF AUGUSTUS W. HARE, ROME 377 FROM THE LOGGIA DEI LANZI 379 PIAZZA S. DOMENICO, BOLOGNA 381 CLUNY 384 CLOISTER OF FONTENAY 385 ST. MARTIN'S, CANTERBURY 394 HENRY ALFORD, DEAN OF CANTERBURY. (Photogravure) To face 394 THE CHURCH LANE, HURSTMONCEAUX 410

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