* * * * *

All that I have seen and heard, all that I have felt and suffered, since I left Italy, recalls to my mind that delightful country.  I should regret what I have left behind, had I not outlived all regrets—­but one—­for there, though

    I vainly sought from outward forms to win
    The passion and the life whose fountains are within;

all feeling was not yet worn out of my heart:  I was not then blinded nor stupified by sorrow and weakness as I have been since.

There are some places we remember with pleasure, because we have been happy there; others, because endeared to us as the residence of friends.  We love our country because it is our country; our home because it is home:  London or Paris we may prefer, as comprehending in themselves, all the intellectual pleasures, and luxuries of life:  but, dear Italy!—­we love it, simply for its own sake:  not as in general we are attached to places and things, but as we love a friend, and the face of a friend; there it was “luxury to be,”—­there I would willingly have died, if so it might have pleased God.

Till this evening we have not seen a gleam of sunshine, nor a glimpse of the blue sky, since we crossed Mount Cenis.  We entered Lyons during a small drizzling rain.  The dirty streets, the black gloomy-looking house, the smoking manufactories, and busy looks of the people, made me think of Florence and Genoa, and their “fair white walls” and princely domes; and when in the evening I heard the whining organ which some wretched Savoyard was grinding near us, I remembered even with emotion the delightful voices I heard singing “Di piacer mi balza il cor” under my balcony at Turin—­my last recollection of Italy:  and to-night, when they opened the window to give me air, I felt, on recovering, the cold chill of the night breeze; and as I shivered, and shrunk away from it, I remembered the delicious and genial softness of our Italian evenings—­

* * * * *

22.—­No letters from England.

Now that it is past, I may confess, that till now, a faint—­a very faint hope did cling to my heart.  I thought it might have been just possible; but it is over now—­all is over!

We leave Lyons on Tuesday, and travel by short easy stages; and they think I may still reach Paris.  I will hold up—­if possible.

Yet if they would but lay me down on the road-side, and leave me to die in quietness! to rest is all I ask.

24.—­St. Albin.  We arrived here yesterday—­

* * * * *

     The few sentences which follow are not legible.

     Four days after the date of the last paragraph, the writer
     died at Autun in her 26th year, and was buried in the garden
     of the Capuchin Monastery, near that city.—­EDITOR.

THE END.