CHAPTER XXXV.

THE MOUNTAIN RILL.

A CHARACTERISTIC picture of Lucy Smith is given in a private letter written not long after her death, by her husband's niece Clara - Mrs. George Willett.

"How can I make you understand what that double grave for I cannot separate them, my perfect pair has taken from my life? I seem now to have lost him afresh, for while I had her, my "legacy" as she loved to call herself to me, I always felt I had a large part of him left. His last message, spoken by her to me with a solemnity I can never forget, 'Give her my great love' was a precious gift indeed. And you will let me say that no word of praise she ever wrote of this remarkable man was in the least exaggerated; he was in every respect as singularly rare and refined a character as herself. Here there was a bond of sympathy between herself and me greater perhaps than with any other, for he and I were deeply attached, and she delighted in my enthusiastic girlish devotion to him. How she loved to call herself his reflection,' and how we, knowing her own intense individuality, used to smile, and let her say it!

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"She was a woman remarkably free from all the littleness of women. There was a breadth and grandeur about her view of things, as refreshing as a mountain breeze. She would generally put any topic one brought before her for counsel in an entirely new light; for instance, once when I told her with some distress my three-year old boy had stolen a piece of sugar, she at once replied, 'Of course, the child requires sweet things you must see

that he has them.' And at another time when I told her of some one who had taken a district for the purpose of 'self-denial,' how eloquent she was in disapprobation! How clearly she proved to me the 'wrongness' of the whole idea from the beginning, and ended with: 'If you don't feel drawn to go and see the poor woman from simple love and interest, don't go. It is an insult to visit a poor woman for the sake of self-denial to yourself!

"My dear aunt Lucy possessed a something in addition to that keen sympathetic insight on which I need not enlarge to you. It was a power peculiarly her own of putting one in a good humour with one's self. Hers was the tact of bringing to the front one's best and brightest; and I fully believe that many others will share with me the odd and depressing, perhaps very foolish but none the less real feeling, that I shall never be quite so 'nice' again, deprived of her sweet and blessing encouragement, and radiant mantle of all-covering love.

"She had the gift of putting into the choicest and often most original and piquant language exactly what she meant to say. How often we would exclaim, 'Nobody could have said that but you!' Both she and her husband were great coiners of words, and had quite a little vocabulary of their own for the little things of every-day use things hallowed by their blessed touch, and by the utter unworldliness of everything they said and did.

"Hers were strong prejudices; as a young woman, I believe, very strong ones. She told me that he used to say to her, Lucy, you are too exacting.' It was curious to observe during her recent years of widowhood how any tendency to intolerance in her grew less and less. This she attributed to the influence of his teaching. During her rare and precious visits to our house, I did my best, as you may suppose, to weed away all comers that might be uncongenial to her; and during her last visit she spoke of this gradual change in herself, and apropos of one

guest said, 'When I met him before he did not please me, but now, do you know, I rather like him!'

"She could detect with unerring fidelity the true from the false, and when she said with her peculiar nod, 'Ah, my dear, I have diagnosed him!' we knew it was useless to ask her to reconsider the verdict."

Mrs. Ruck writes of "a quality which I think one of the most uncommon of her gifts a transparent openness of nature which let her share every thought with those she loved, and an absence of suspicion which banished keys and let letters lie about. I shall never forget the way in which she spoke most confidentially to me during a drive, in utter disregard of the old man on the box, who she said was deaf! And often in omnibuses people have gazed at her whilst she, rapt in a subject in which she was deeply interested, expounded it to me, in utter oblivion of those around her, or entire confidence in their friendliness!"

To Mrs. Lorimer.

WORSLEY VILLA, VENTNOR, March 9, 1879.

It seems long, very dear one, since I had your little note with its happy tidings. When, or if, there comes a disengaged half-hour and the inclination, you will send me a few lines. But I know well how more and more the inclination so to employ leisure does not come. There is more rest in some book, and when we want rest, there is not the impulse to give out but the need to absorb, imbibe some great thought, some words of "more life and fuller fife." I am becoming very inert as to letter-writing, and I am not one of the busy who have any claim to rest. However, this evening after a good strong cup of tea I like to tell you how soothingly the waves break under the window here, and that beautiful colors have just faded out of the sky. This house is about a hundred feet above the sea, and as I sit at the writing-table just out of the pleas

ant large window- projecting but not a bow-I seem hanging over the quiet misty waters, which are blending with the gray evening sky. It has been a lovely day, and Mary and I had a sweet walk along the cliff to lovely Bonchurch, where the old church and churchyard, both unused for thirty years, are exquisitely situated very near the waves, and with great trees that "stretch forth their branches to the sea." I have not yet been in the churchyard, where I want to go to stand by John Sterling's grave to me notable as that of the man my husband thought so eminently lovable. I expect you all much to admire Miss When I saw her she was a little girl, with grand calm brow and eyes, very like her mother William thought, and the father felt the likeness would help him to live on "till the morning of the resurrection." It was in the early days, early years, of loss that he said this. How well I remember it! the sunny Brighton esplanade, on which he walked with his little girl, and his upward glance; and I, who had my husband with me, could so well believe that such loss was irremediable. Well I am sure that "women cannot judge for men," and that some minds do continue loyally to harmonize two paramount loves.

I am growing so creaky and rheumatic, and feel so very like the large sea crayfish in one of the melancholy tanks of (I must say) the very melancholy Edinburgh Aquarium! If you go there, watch him moving his stiff joints, and give me a sigh! Unless these symptoms depart as suddenly as they came on, I fear I shall never reach a mountain-side any more. I am planning a week in London in April, and then to return with my brother to Garthewin and spend the rest of the month there. And then from Wales it is possible that Hessie Howard and I may go to Ireland for a short stay at Bundoran. The alternative, which I should like quite as well, but judge less pleasant and beneficial for her, would be going together to

Patterdale quite early in May. I am reading sermons of Picton's that would interest you I know. Good-by, my dear one. I seldom now write as long a letter as this. Mary- who is fortunate enough to be reading "Lorna Doone " for the first time, sends her love, and give mine to the dear Netty.

To Mrs. A. Constable.

PATTERDALE, June 11, 1879.

Think of the poor dear man I was sitting with last night. At the age of fifty-five, he told me, he "was as good a man as ever he was in his life, and as up to a hard day's work." Then to be driven over by

There's a trial for you. "I could have wished," he said, "to have gone on working, for we were so comfortable ; and it soon goes, does the money, when you can't work." All the little honest savings melted away, to say nothing of health ruined and incessant pain. And his poor good wife has two dreadful fingers, and if they have not to be taken off it will be a mercy. Having been the clerk, this worthy has contracted a habit of using sonorous language, and enjoys talking. I was so glad I went in! He was very fine on selfishness. "When a man loses conscience, you see, he comes to think nowt except about himself, and when a man thinks of nowt but himself, what is he but an animal?" "Oh, much worse!" I pleaded, for with sweet Pup beside me I felt an animal was a pure delight; and he conceded the point they were worse. It would have been a pleasure to leave an offering of respect, but I may screw it out of another week. This afternoon I must take five shillings to Grisedale. I had a feeling that the blind man felt empty-handed visitors took an imperfect view of the case. Do you know I believe myself to have become as if porous to the consciousness of others? I am pretty sure I feel how they are feeling, and often get verifications long afterward.