“Martha T.’s illness was unknown to me till the day before she died.  I hastened to Koekelberg the next morning—­unconscious that she was in great danger—­and was told that it was finished.  She had died in the night.  Mary was taken away to Bruxelles.  I have seen Mary frequently since.  She is in no ways crushed by the event; but while Martha was ill, she was to her more than a mother—­more than a sister:  watching, nursing, cherishing her so tenderly, so unweariedly.  She appears calm and serious now; no bursts of violent emotion; no exaggeration of distress.  I have seen Martha’s grave—­the place where her ashes lie in a foreign country.”

Who that has read “Shirley” does not remember the few lines—­perhaps half a page—­of sad recollection?

“He has no idea that little Jessy will die young, she is so gay, and chattering, and arch—­original even now; passionate when provoked, but most affectionate if caressed; by turns gentle and rattling; exacting yet generous; fearless . . . yet reliant on any who will help her.  Jessy, with her little piquant face, engaging prattle, and winning ways, is made to be a pet.

* * * * *

“Do you know this place?  No, you never saw it; but you recognise the nature of these trees, this foliage—­the cypress, the willow, the yew.  Stone crosses like these are not unfamiliar to you, nor are these dim garlands of everlasting flowers.  Here is the place:  green sod and a grey marble head-stone—­Jessy sleeps below.  She lived through an April day; much loved was she, much loving.  She often, in her brief life, shed tears—­she had frequent sorrows; she smiled between, gladdening whatever saw her.  Her death was tranquil and happy in Rose’s guardian arms, for Rose had been her stay and defence through many trials; the dying and the watching English girls were at that hour alone in a foreign country, and the soil of that country gave Jessy a grave.

* * * * *

“But, Jessy, I will write about you no more.  This is an autumn evening, wet and wild.  There is only one cloud in the sky; but it curtains it from pole to pole.  The wind cannot rest; it hurries sobbing over hills of sullen outline, colourless with twilight and mist.  Rain has beat all day on that church tower” (Haworth):  “it rises dark from the stony enclosure of its graveyard:  the nettles, the long grass, and the tombs all drip with wet.  This evening reminds me too forcibly of another evening some years ago:  a howling, rainy autumn evening too—­when certain who had that day performed a pilgrimage to a grave new made in a heretic cemetery, sat near a wood fire on the hearth of a foreign dwelling.  They were merry and social, but they each knew that a gap, never to be filled, had been made in their circle.  They knew they had lost something whose absence could never be quite atoned for, so long as they lived; and they knew that heavy falling rain was soaking into the