shake hands and offer an oleander and a most fragrant

sweet Sixt! We left St.

rose as a "souvenir de Sixt" Martin at about one o'clock. From Chède the rise was long and steep, and we walked a good deal beneath the most burning of suns, but there was a breeze and often shade, and the scenery the whole way to Servoz was beyond description. From Servoz a dear mule was taken to assist our famous horse and we walked no more. What the glory was! But some miles before we reached Chamounix I was too tired to feel anything. William, on the contrary, all soul, and all thrilled with the vast, simple, cold, stern grandeur of this valley, as peak after peak seemed to fall into line and range themselves under the white banner of the monarch mountain. There are as many mules here as people, and such immense, sleek, delightful fellows. But they are very expensive, and we will see what we can walking. To-day I have been to church. There is a very pretty English church here, and a most earnest, elderly man preached. William has had a day of rapture, on the grass, looking at Mont Blanc. He came in with one of his inspired looks, which so wondrously change the aspect of the man. After all, he thinks nothing we have seen so grand as this. I infinitely prefer Zermatt and the marvellous Matterhorn.

WESTON-SUPER-MARE, Nov., 1862. My darling, you see your Zia sits down promptly to answer your little note, though it is but a shabby affair. I should have liked it to be an impulse and a pleasure to write to her, but people are not to be persuaded into impulses. However, whatever you might say would be thought by me well worth hearing. Your Zia likes to hear of small details, of letters received and the like, as well as of feelings and thoughts. And for your own dear sake remember that the effort made to write a long letter leaves a sense of cheerfulness behind that a hasty

note dashed off never does. Your darling godmother writes such pleasant things of you they so thoroughly like you and admire your pretty face. This is not the least likely to make you vain, any vanity you may have being of the pining and rather morbid order that wants to be fed up into health! Mine was always of the same nature, and partial appreciation always did me immense good. It is only when people rate us a little above our true standard that we can come up to it. Oh, it is so good, therefore, to love and be loved! I rejoice more than I can say that you should be with two such samples of human nature as General and Mrs. Cotton. I am sure you must feel your spirits rise as you see what a divine thing this earthly life may be made this life which with all its exquisite possibilities lies all before you. You were at Chester, my dear, this day fortnight, when your Gran got a long letter from me, which of course you saw. I have just had an excellent account from her. Dear Gran! She writes in such good spirits and the dear Grandpère has been down, she says, several times, and must be marvellously better, for he speaks of being photographed next week. Tell me, my dear one, when you know, your winter plans, but meanwhile give nothing a thought but your happy visit. I rejoice to believe that dear Edith is quite happy with the grandparents. It is pleasant to us all to feel ourselves of use, and of consequence to the daily lives of others. I thought Edith so improved in every way. It is, I am sure, very good for her to be at Chester all her more helpful qualities are called into play. Did I tell you I mean, did I tell in my last letter to the Gran what a charming review there had been of "Gravenhurst' in the "Revue des Deux Mondes?" We lead such a quiet life here, so different, so contrasted in its circumstances with the social one your sweet godmother leads. We do not know a single person, nor shall we during our months here speak to any one but to each other! And yet

I maintain that we both are very social people. I saw it remarked the other day that the most solitary people are at the same time the most sociable, and it really is a truth though it seems a paradox. I can't say I want anything, for that would imply some sadness or discontent, and every one of my days is brim-full of happiness. But yet if any friend did appear, it would be very charming, too. Sometimes we think, how nice to go to Edinburgh, where we have so many real friends. . . . Oh, those St. Bernard dogs! what precious creatures they must be what delicious cheeks they must have how I should kiss them! Are they much attached to their master and mistress? There are not many dogs here, not any that I am on speaking terms with. I must needs tell you of my letters, dear, for unless I record what we have had for dinner the last week, or prose about the books we have been reading, or get upon William's perfections, which I am always in danger of doing what have I to write about? We are living very economically here. Indeed, we must do so, for we have mainly our work to depend upon, and that is a precarious thing. I have been employing myself in translating one of Victor Hugo's poems, but I dare say I shall not get it taken.

CHAPTER XXI.

MOTHER AND DAUGHTER.

(From the Memoir.)

IN the spring of 1863, after a little round of visits — a thing unprecedented with us - we found ourselves again in the neighborhood of Coniston, attracted thither mainly by friends with whom, during our stay at Tent Cottage, we had entered into cordial relations, and whom we had much enjoyed meeting during our Swiss tour. One of these friends was an especially congenial companion to my husband, and his correspondent to the end. Whenever he had received any new or vivid delight from art or nature, or whenever a political or religious movement had excited in him more than usual interest, I always knew that the sheets of note-paper I saw spread out on the little desk were destined for Miss Rigbye. She will not, I know, object to my quoting here her earliest impression of him :

"I like to recall the first time I saw him, and the feeling that his joyous, radiant expression awakened in mesomething of surprise, and wonder, and pleasure. I remember distinctly recognizing that it was something I had never seen before."

During the course of this summer, there fell upon me an irreparable blow, the death within one week of both beloved parents. But my husband's presence made anguish (as I now understand the word) impossible. A few days before her sudden seizure, my mother had said to me, "Thank God, my darling, that when I am in my grave

you will have one to love you as I do!" She, better than any one, would have understood how, having all in him, even her loss could not darken life. My joy henceforth lacked the complete reflection it had found from her sympathy, but it was "fulness of joy" still. More than ever my company, more than ever tender, my husband seemed resolved that my nature should know no want. Part of the ensuing winter was spent in Edinburgh amid true friends; the remainder at Brighton.

The story of her parents' last days was written in a letter to be circulated among their friends. From the touching story we take two or three passages.

August 19, 1863.

[She relates how she was summoned to her parents at Chester, her father, for a long time blind and an invalid, having suffered a second stroke of paralysis. She found him unable to speak, though evidently with clear mind.] I believe that he never for a moment expected to recover, though when we told him of good symptoms he would bow a gracious assent. But that was for our sakes. He knew the value of hope to those who attend the sick. Meanwhile, as I found that to speak much to him was to provoke painful efforts to reply, that he seemed indifferent to reading, and that my presence did not soothe him more than that of others, I was less taken up with him than I had been during my two previous visits, and more constantly with my own most precious mother. All who know me at all know, I think, how intensely I loved her, how intensely we loved each other. But never in my whole life did I appreciate her more than during this last fortnight. Everything was cheery and pleasant. She took a hopeful view of my dear father's case, trusted she might yet see him sitting up a little in his chair, rejoiced in his freedom from bodily pain, and made the best of everything.