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glad to see you, for I want to tell you such an odd thing that has happened to me. Last night I was in bed and the room was quite dark (this old-fashioned room of the inn at Lymington which you now see). Suddenly at the foot of the bed there appeared a great light, and in the midst of the light the figure of Death just as it is seen in the Dance of Death and other old pictures—a ghastly skeleton with a scythe and a dart: and Death balanced the dart, and it flew past me, just above my shoulder, close to my head, and it seemed to go into the wall; and then the light went out and the figure vanished. I was as wide awake then as I am now, for I pinched myself hard to see, and I lay awake for a long time, but at last I fell asleep. When my servant came to call me in the morning, he had a very scared expression of face, and he said, ‘A dreadful thing has happened in the night, and the whole household of the inn is in the greatest confusion and grief, for the landlady’s daughter, who slept in the next room, and the head of whose bed is against the wall against which your head now rests, has been found dead in her bed.’ ”[136]

      “Nov. 1, Sunday.—Lady Waterford has talked much of how few people in the world each person has to whom their deaths would make a real void; that she had scarcely any one—General Stuart perhaps, and Lady Jane; that others would be sorry at the time, but that it would to them make no blank; that somehow it would be pleasant to leave more of a void, but that even with brothers and sisters it was seldom so. I spoke of her own sister and of the great grief her death had been. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘a great grief, but still it is wonderful how little we had been together—scarcely three years, putting all the weeks together, out of the fourteen years we had been married. Of all my relations, Mama is certainly the greatest loss to me, we had been so much together latterly, and were so much to each other.’

      “We went to church at Etal in the afternoon. Both there and at Ford, it being All Saints’ Day, the sermons were wholly in exaltation of the saints, church services, and salvation by works. Lady Waterford was pained by it: coming back she spoke of a simple rule of doctrine:—

      ‘Just before God by faith,

       Just before men by works:

       Just by the works of faith,

       Just by the faith which works.’

      enlarge-image Louisa, Marchioness of Waterford Louisa, Marchioness of Waterford

      enlarge-image THE SECRET STAIR, FORD. THE SECRET STAIR, FORD. [137]

      “On Saturday we went to Norham—the Lindsays and I. Even coming from Devonshire, the interest of this country strikes one excessively. It is bare, it is even ugly, but it is strangely interesting. There is such breadth and space in the long lines and sweeping distances, amidst which an occasional peel-tower stands like a milestone of history, and there is such a character in the strange, jagged, wind-tossed, storm-stricken trees. But it became really beautiful when we descended into the lovely valley of the Tweed with all its radiant autumnal tints, and sat under the grand mass of ruin, with great flights of birds ever circling round it and crying in the still air.”

      “Nov. 4.—Yesterday we went quite a round of visits, seeing different phases of Border family life. We lunched at the Hirsel (Lord Home’s)—a great Scotchy-looking house in a rather featureless park. There were two tables and an immense party at luncheon—Mr. and Lady Gertrude Rolle, Lord Romney, and others. I did not think it an interesting place, though it contains a fine portrait of Sir Walter Scott by Raeburn; but Lady Waterford delighted in the happy family life, and says whenever she sees Lord Home she is reminded of the Frenchman who said, ‘Oh, mon Dieu! pourquoi est ce qu’il n’est pas mon père?’

      enlarge-image NORHAM-ON-TWEED. NORHAM-ON-TWEED. [138]

      “Then we went to the Baillie Hamiltons at Lenels, another and prettier place on the Tweed near Coldstream Bridge. The house contained much that was interesting, especially two enormous Chelsea vases representing ‘Air’ and ‘Water.’ Mrs. Baillie Hamilton was a daughter of Lord Polwarth—very pleasing, and her sister came in with the most perfect manners of good-breeding, &c. Then we went to the Askews.

      “Lady Waterford stopped to take our luncheon—prepared but not eaten—to a poor man in a consumption. She beguiled the way by describing her visit to Windsor, and the Queen showing her the Mausoleum.

      “She talked also of the passion for jewels: that she could understand it in the case of such persons as Madame Mère, who, when remonstrated with on buying so many diamonds, said, ‘J’accumule, j’accumule,’ for it had been very useful to her. Apropos of not despising dress, she gave me the quotation from Pope’s Homer’s Odyssey[139]—

      ‘A dignity

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