might regain power, and prescribed in the meantime "the life of a cabbage." Dr. Little was never sanguine. Dr. Hughlings Jackson and Dr. Hawkesley held out but little hope of improvement. All agreed that she must rest, vegetate, lead the life of an invalid.

When the prospect of the future really dawned upon her, who can wonder that she found submission, acquiescence, exceedingly hard. "My whole being revolts at the very idea,” she said one day.

On another occasion, with a part humorous, part pathetic expression, she exclaimed, “The change is great and," after a pause, " not pleasant." But in later years, after long and patient suffering, she was able to say, Many have a heavier cross."

She announced by letter to the present writer the verdict of her physicians, adding the pathetic words, "Love me to the end."

66

CHAPTER XX

THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW

'By two wings a man is raised above the earth, namely by Simplicity and Purity."-THOMAS À KEMPIS.

THERE was still much within Bessie's power; and in tracing her work at this period we find little diminution in her correspondence. She received letters almost daily from Colonel Fyers on the business of the Institution. Levy wrote frequently and fully to her. She had given him great assistance in writing a book on Blindness and the Blind, and her own notes were made over to him.

A letter which she received in March 1872 is interesting as a description of preparations made by a blind man, Levy, carried out by a blind carpenter, Farrow, and related to the blind lady, Miss Gilbert. The occasion was the Thanksgiving for the Restoration of the Prince of Wales in February 1872, when the streets were gay with decorations and every window full of spectators. No house showed more bravely than the Institution for Promoting the Welfare of the Blind in

Oxford Street; subscribers and their friends, the Committee and their friends, filled every window, and the blind were keenly alive to all that was going on around them, and to the distinction of the Prince's plume and gas jets and the letters V.R., "each about four feet long in gold paper."

"The decorations," writes Levy, "consisted of a Union Jack flag at the top of the house, and about half way up a crown and Prince's plume, made of gold paper, projecting from the wall, and the letters V.R., each about four feet long and two feet broad, made in thick rossets in silver paper on crimson ground, also projecting some distance from the wall, a wreath of flowers extended from the house to the post at the curb of the pavement, the lamp of which contained a transparency.

"At night the illumination consisted of a Prince's plume in gas jets, which we bought for three pounds ten instead of hiring a similar one for ten pounds; the wood used for seats will be made into housemaids' boxes, etc. and the American cloth with which they were covered made available for dress baskets.

"I think if you give five pounds it will be enough, as ten pounds will cover the whole expense. The goods and glass cases were taken out of the shop windows and three rows of seats, which gradually receded and increased in height, were formed. The same kind of seats were in the Committee room and the apartments above, out of which the windows were taken. A rail was put to keep people from going on to the balcony, as it was not safe; tables with wine and biscuits were placed, and Mr. Osmond had something more substantial in his rooms, with which Mr. Reid and others were well pleased."

On the 1st April 1872 the Rev. Frederick Denison Maurice died. Bessie had been but

slightly acquainted with him, but he was the brother of her old and dear friends, Mrs. Powell and Mrs. Julius Hare. She had been less startled by his written and spoken words than many of circle, and on his death she

those in her own

recognised that a

great power had gone from

amongst us, and sincerely mourned his loss.

She worked as usual at the arrangements for the annual meeting in 1872, and on the 22d June the Archbishop of York, who presided, wrote to tell her of its success.

22d June 1872.

MY DEAR MISS GILBERT-I attended the meeting and made my short speech. There never was a nicer meeting, the speakers were full of gratitude to you for all you had done. We could have had twice the number of speakers if we had wanted them.

I hope, my dear Miss Gilbert, that God will strengthen you and enable you to carry on for many years your excellent Association.-Ever with much regard, yours truly, W. EBOR.

The Princess Edward of Saxe-Weimar, sister of the Duke of Richmond, conveyed a request from Bessie to the Duke and Duchess of Teck, whose interest she hoped to enlist for the annual meeting of 1872. They were abroad in the spring, but the Duke returned in time to preside at the June meeting. Bessie never dropped any of the links in her chain, and her early life at Chichester had given her many valuable allies.

In her long days of enforced inactivity she would recall to mind visits to Goodwood, to Arundel, interest expressed and shown in the

objects she had at heart, and would redouble her efforts to raise up friends for the blind.

Meantime there was a steady deterioration in her own physical condition.

The malady which had been making insidious progress for so long was degeneration of the spinal cord. The disease is one that generally owes its origin to accident or injury, but so far as could be ascertained Bessie had never met with either.

The physicians who attended her throughout the last years of her life inclined to the view that the poison in the blood left by scarlet fever was the cause not only of the condition of the throat, from which she suffered throughout her whole life (it will be remembered that she could only drink in sips), but also of this degeneration of the spinal cord.

Looking back, the members of her family recalled to mind that her powers of motion had not for many years been free and unimpeded. The significant entries in diary and letters, as to her moving and walking better, will not be forgotten. But the true cause of this had not been suspected, except by Dr. Little; for mischief to the spinal cord may be carried very far before there is any outward sign to manifest it. The power of motion and merely animal functions are affected by it; but intelligence remains alert and the brain. power unaffected. The symptoms which accompany it are at first attributed to weakness, overwork, physical fatigue, any of which would be sufficient to account for them before the disease