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to Lord de Grey on the 10th of February 1870, and was still there when she was summoned to Chichester by telegram on Sunday the 20th.

The sisters at home had been conscious for some days of a greater sense of uneasiness than usual, but there was nothing definite to take hold of. The Bishop came down as usual to the diningroom on Friday the 18th. On Saturday the 19th he kept his room for the early part of the day, and dined in the morning-room, that room adjoining his own in which Bessie used to spend so much time with her mother when first they went to Chichester. The absent sons and daughters were informed of this failure of strength on Saturday morning, but there were no alarming symptoms until the evening. Then and on the following morning, Sunday the 20th, telegrams summoned them to Chichester without delay. Bessie reached the palace about 10 P.M. on Sunday. Her father recognised her, but he was by that time too weak to speak. There were no last words, and he sank peacefully to his rest, dying at 5 A.M. on Monday, 21st February 1870.

Bessie had left home without even a suspicion that she might be recalled by a sudden summons, and now it seemed to her impossible that her father's death should precede her own, and that a loss that she had not dared even to think of, should have fallen upon her. She was stunned by the blow, but she bore it with characteristic and Christian courage, patience, and submission.

CHAPTER XIX

IN TIME OF NEED

"The grave is heaven's golden gate,

And rich and poor around it wait."--BLAKE.

IT was deemed undesirable for Bessie to remain at Chichester during the sad week that followed the death of her father. She went to her elder sister, Mary, the beloved Mary of her youth, now the mother of a family and head of a large household.

She wrote with her own hand a short note to one of the sisters at the palace, which reassured them as to her condition.

MILTON HILL, 28th March 1870. MY DEAR SARAH-Thank you for all your letters. As you say, all the preparations must be painful, but I am very thankful to hear you and Nora are pretty well. You know without my telling you so, how very much you are in my thoughts. I hope to come back Tuesday or Wednesday, but Mary wants me to stay. Is it so, that we need not go till after Easter? I should like to know, because of what I may have to do about my own things. I think the appointment seems very good. As for me I am rather better to-day, having slept better two nights;

but it is difficult to me as yet to do things, I have so little energy or interest in anything. I will write again about my coming. Mary is really pretty well I think, the last day or two have been much pleasanter. Love to you all from your loving sister BESSIE.

She returned to the palace but did not stay long, and spent the greater part of the two months of preparation for leaving Chichester with her sister, Mrs. Woods. She went, however, to her old home in April, and left it finally with her brother and two unmarried sisters on the 21st of April 1870.

Loving words greeted them on the day of their departure. "Wherever we are," wrote one of the sisters, "we shall all know that we are thinking of each other."

The house in Queen Anne Street was let at this time; two sisters went to St. Leonards, but Bessie, with her faithful maid, took the much shorter and easier journey to Slinfold Rectory, near Horsham, the home of her sister Lucy, Mrs. Sutton.

She was sad and in very feeble health. All the future seemed dark and uncertain; she could make no plans, she could not look forward. At such a time the tender and loving care of Mr. and Mrs. Sutton were very precious to her. Insensibly, almost unconsciously, she was helped by the numerous children around her. their midst she learnt to know them

and they cheered her and amused her.

Living in intimately,

The little

boys had quaint ways and odd sayings, and they

made her forget herself and listen to them and wonder at them. The eldest girl, also a Lucy, had always been a pet, and now became very dear to her. From Slinfold she went to her sister Fanny, Mrs. Casson, at Torquay, and there found another kind brother-in-law, another large family of nephews and nieces, all ready to love and to wait upon the dear "Aunt Bessie." Four homes, in all of which she was a welcome and honoured guest, were thus open to her. Hitherto her time had been divided between London and Chichester. She had not allowed herself the luxury of visits to married sisters, and had only seen them and their children on the occasion of their visits to the palace or London. Now she began to be intimate with them, to be interested in the character and dispositions of the young people, and to enjoy the family life of which one and all helped to make her feel she was a member.

Meantime old and dear friends gathered around her and sought to comfort and encourage her. She preserved many letters which she prized and had found helpful. One of the first to speak was the Rev. H. Browne, who held the living of Pevensey. He was one of the Bishop's chaplains, the author of Ordo Sæclorum, a student of German theology, and, that which most attracted Bessie, he was a very good reader, and at Chichester had often read aloud Shakespere's plays to the sisterhood. Mr. Browne now was the first to strike a note to which she could respond :

He rests from his labours and his works do follow him. Yours remain. It is needless for me to say it, for you must all know it better than I, he counted it among his mercies that a work had been raised up for you, which when father and mother were gone would be to you the work and the blessing of your life. He evidently acknowledged this as God's calling to you, and as one of the thoughts in which he was greatly comforted in looking forward upon your future life.

Many other writers dwelt upon the unsparing labour and self-denying zeal of her father, and all recognised that she, the daughter so near his heart and always the object of his most tender love and watchful care, must be the one most deeply stricken by the pain of separation.

"To you, I imagine, the blow will come heaviest," wrote Mrs. Powell; and this sentiment is repeated in almost every letter.

A letter from the Secretary of her own Association, informing her of a vote of condolence passed by the Committee, begins, oddly enough, with

"I have the pleasure to inform you,"

The blind workmen and workwomen did their best to express their regret at the death of "his lordship the Bishop," and a note is enclosed to her by the Rev. B. Hayley, written by a poor fellow in the Chichester Union, "just to show what the poor, the very poorest in the diocese, think of your dear father."

The Rev. Dr. Swainson, Canon of Chichester, now Master of Christ's College, Cambridge, heard that Bessie's grief was heightened by the fact that

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