We knelt and prayed and, though I was more removed from the world and in the humour both to see and to hear what was not material, in my grief over Laura’s death, which took place ten days later, I have never heard from her or of her from that day to this.

Mrs. Lyttelton has told the story of her husband’s first marriage with so much perfection that I hesitate to go over the same ground again, but, as my sister Laura’s death had more effect on me than any event in my life, except my own marriage and the birth of my children, I must copy a short account of it written at that time: 

’On Saturday, 17th April, 1886, I was riding down a green slope in Gloucestershire while the Beaufort hounds were scattered below vainly trying to pick up the scent; they were on a stale line and the result had been general confusion.  It was a hot day and the woods were full of children and primroses.

“The air was humming with birds and insects, nature wore an expectant look and all the hedge-rows sparkled with the spangles of the spring.  There was a prickly gap under a tree which divided me from my companions.  I rode down to jump it, but, whether from breeding, laziness or temper, my horse turned round and refused to move.  I took my foot out of the stirrup and gave him a slight kick.  I remember nothing after that till I woke up in a cottage with a tremendous headache.  They said that the branch was too low, or the horse jumped too big and a withered bough had caught me in the face.  In consequence I had concussion of the brain; and my nose and upper lip were badly torn.  I was picked up by my early fiance.  He tied my lip to my hair—­as it was reposing on my chin—­ and took me home in a cart.  The doctor was sent for, but there was no time to give me chloroform.  I sat very still from vanity while three stitches were put through the most sensitive part of my nose.  When it was all over, I looked at myself in the looking-glass and burst into tears.  I had never been very pretty ("worse than that,” as the Marquis of Soveral [Footnote:  The Late Portuguese Minister.] said) but I had a straight nose and a look of intelligence; and now my face would be marked for life like a German student’s.

“The next day a telegram arrived saying:  “’Laura confined—­a boy—­ both doing well.’

“We sent back a message saying:  “‘Hurrah and blessing!’

On Sunday we received a letter from Charty saying Laura was very ill and another on Monday telling us to go to London.  I was in a state of acute anxiety and said to the doctor I must go and see Laura immediately, but he would not hear of it: 

“’Impossible!  You’ll get erysipelas and die.  Most dangerous to move with a face like that,’ he said.

“On the occasion of his next visit, I was dressed and walking up and down the room in a fume of nervous excitement, for go I would.  Laura was dying (I did not really think she was, but I wanted to be near her).  I insisted upon his taking the stitches out of my face and ultimately he had to give in.  At 6 p.m.  I was in the train for London, watching the telegraph-posts flying past me.