Before she went there many of her friends urged her to give up the expedition.  Her maid had a premonition that the enterprise would end in disaster, and had begged her mistress to stay at home.

“I feel sure you will never return alive ma’am,” she had urged, and Miss Macnaughtan’s first words to her old servant on her return were:  “You were right, Mary.  Russia has killed me.”

Miss Macnaughtan rallied a little in June, and was occasionally carried down to her library for a few hours in the afternoon, but even that amount of exertion was too much for her.  For the last weeks of her life she never left her room.

Surely there never was a sweeter or more adorable invalid!  I can see her now, propped up on pillows in a room filled with masses of most exquisite flowers.  She always had things dainty and fragrant about her, and one had a vision of pale blue ribbons, and soft laces, and lovely flowers, and then one forgot everything else as one looked at the dear face framed in such soft grey hair.  She looked so fragile that one fancied she might be wafted away by a summer breeze, and I have never seen anyone so pale.  There was not a tinge of colour in face or hands, and one kissed her gently for fear that even a caress might be too much for her waning strength.

Her patience never failed.  She never grumbled or made complaint, and even in the smallest things her interest and sympathy were as fresh as ever.  A new dress worn by one of her sisters was a pleasure, and she would plan it, and suggest and admire.

It was a supreme joy to Miss Macnaughtan to hear, some time in June, that she had received the honour of being chosen to be a Lady of Grace of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem.  Any recognition of her good work was an unfailing source of gratification to her sensitive nature, sensitive alike to praise or blame.

She was so wonderfully strong in her mind and will that it seemed impossible in those long June days to believe that she had such a little time to live.  She managed all her own business affairs, personally dictated or wrote answers to her correspondence, and was full of schemes for the redecoration of her house and of plans for the future.

I have only been able to procure three of my aunt’s letters written after her return to England.  They were addressed to her eldest sister, Mrs. ffolliott.  I insert them here: 

* * * * *

[Page Heading:  MISS MACNAUGHTAN’S LAST LETTERS]

1, NORFOLK STREET, PARK LANE, W. Tuesday.

MY DEAREST OLD POOT,

How good of you to write.  I was awfully pleased to see a letter from you.  I have been a fearful crock since I got home, and I have to lie in bed for six weeks and live on milk diet for eight weeks.  The illness is of a tropical nature, and one of the symptoms is that one can’t eat, so one gets fearfully thin.  I am something over six stone now, but I was very much less.