My mother went up to town, and in a week or two I received a telegram, saying she was dangerously ill, and as fast as express train would take me I was beside her.  Dying, the doctor said; three days she might live—­no more.  I told her the death-sentence, but she said resolutely, “I do not feel that I am going to die just yet,” and she was right.  There was an attack of fearful prostration—­the valves of the heart had failed—­a very wrestling with Death, and then the grim shadow drew backwards.  I nursed her day and night with a very desperation of tenderness, for now Fate had touched the thing dearest to me in life.  A second horrible crisis came, and for the second time her tenacity and my love beat back the death-stroke.  She did not wish to die, the love of life was strong in her; I would not let her die; between us we kept the foe at bay.  Then dropsy supervened, and the end loomed slowly sure.

It was then, after eighteen months’ abstention, that I took the Sacrament for the last time.  My mother had an intense longing to communicate before she died, but absolutely refused to do so unless I took it with her.  “If it be necessary to salvation,” she persisted, doggedly, “I will not take it if darling Annie is to be shut out.  I would rather be lost with her than saved without her.”  I went to a clergyman I knew well, and laid the case before him; as I expected, he refused to allow me to communicate.  I tried a second, with the same result.  At last a thought struck me.  There was Dean Stanley, my mother’s favourite, a man known to be of the broadest school within the Church of England; suppose I asked him?  I did not know him, and I felt the request would be an impertinence; but there was just the chance that he might consent, and what would I not do to make my darling’s death-bed easier?  I said nothing to any one, but set out to the Deanery, Westminster, timidly asked for the Dean, and followed the servant upstairs with a sinking heart.  I was left for a moment alone in the library, and then the Dean came in.  I don’t think I ever in my life felt more intensely uncomfortable than I did in that minute’s interval as he stood waiting for me to speak, his clear, grave, piercing eyes gazing questioningly into mine.  Very falteringly—­it must have been very clumsily—­I preferred my request, stating boldly, with abrupt honesty, that I was not a Christian, that my mother was dying, that she was fretting to take the Sacrament, that she would not take it unless I took it with her, that two clergymen had refused to allow me to take part in the service, that I had come to him in despair, feeling how great was the intrusion, but—­she was dying.

His face changed to a great softness.  “You were quite right to come to me,” he answered, in that low, musical voice of his, his keen gaze having altered into one no less direct, but marvellously gentle.  “Of course I will go and see your mother, and I have little doubt that, if you will not mind talking over your position with me, we may see our way clear to doing as your mother wishes.”