“For two or three weeks [during my illness],” she writes again, “I was too prostrate for any consecutive prayer, or for even a text to be given me; and this was the time for realising what ‘silent in love’ meant (Zeph. iii. 17).  And then it seemed doubly sweet when I was again able to ‘hold converse’ with Him.  He seemed too so often to send answers from His own word with wonderful power.  One evening (after a relapse) I longed so much to be able to pray, but found I was too weak for the least effort of thought, and I only looked up and said, ’Lord Jesus, I am so tired!’ and then He brought to my mind ‘rest in the Lord’ with its lovely marginal reading, ‘be silent_ in the Lord;’ and so I just was silent to Him, and He seemed to overflow me with perfect peace, in the sense of His own perfect love.”

When she was at length well enough to resume her literary work again, she busied herself in preparing an Appendix with music to Songs of Grace and Glory.  She had completed it and sent it to the printers, and was hoping to be able to commence a book which she had contemplated writing, when she had the disappointing news that a fire at the printers’ had destroyed the stereotype plates and paper as well as the MS.; and as she had kept no copy of the tunes, all her work had to be done over again.  This “turned lesson,” as she regarded it, was accepted with beautiful patience.

After a visit to Newport, Monmouth, followed by one to Ashley Moor, she spent some time in Switzerland.  Here her quiet work went on among tourists and invalids, as well as Swiss.  It was on this visit to Switzerland that she began the friendship with Baroness Helga V. Cramm, whose painted cards blend so beautifully with her words.

Towards the end of August, symptoms of her illness recurred, and she had not strength to return to England until October.  It was on her journey back that the idea of her book My King came to her.  It was, says her sister, at Oxford station on the way to Winterdyne.  “I thought Frances was dozing when she exclaimed, with that herald flash in her eye, ‘Marie!  I see it all; I can write a little book, My King;’ and rapidly went through divisions for thirty-one chapters.”

The writer of this short biography may here refer to a never-to-be-forgotten hour that he spent with Frances R. Havergal.  He had sent her some lines suggested by this little book, of which she most kindly expressed her approval, and naturally the book My King formed the subject of conversation, and she expressed her gratitude that she had been led to write this and other of her books in chapters for each day in the month; “for,” said she, “they are read through in many cases twelve times a year instead of being perused once and thrown aside.”

The year 1877 was passed uneventfully in paying various visits to relatives.  But though uneventfully spent, not by any means idly or unprofitably, for her time was fully occupied with literary work.