“So few women have been as happy as I have been every hour since I married—­so few have had such a wonderful sky of love for their common atmosphere, that perhaps it will seem strange when I write down that the sadness of Death and Parting is greatly lessened to me by the fact of my consciousness of the eternal, indivisible oneness of Alfred and me.  I feel as long as he is down here I must be here, silently, secretly sitting beside him as I do every evening now, however much my soul is the other side, and that if Alfred were to die, we would be as we were on earth, love as we did this year, only fuller, quicker, deeper than ever, with a purer passion and a wiser worship.  Only in the meantime, whilst my body is hid from him and my eyes cannot see him, let my trivial toys be his till the morning comes when nothing will matter because all is spirit.

“If my baby lives I should like it to have my pearls.  I do not love my diamond necklace, so I won’t leave it to any one.

“I would like Alfred to have my Bible.  It has always rather worried him to hold because it is so full of things; but if I know I am dying, I will clean it out, because, I suppose, he won’t like to after.  I think I am fonder of it—­not, I mean, because it’s the Bible—­but because it’s such a friend, and has been always with me, chiefly under my pillow, ever since I had it—­than of anything I possess, and I used to read it a great deal when I was much better than I am now.  I love it very much, so, Alfred, you must keep it for me.

“Then the prayer book Francie [Footnote:  Lady Horner, of Mells.] gave me is what I love next, and I love it so much I feel I would like to take it with me.  Margot wants a prayer book, so I leave it to her.  It is so dirty outside, but perhaps it would be a pity to bind it.  Margot is to have my darling little Daily Light, too.

“Then Charty is to have my paste necklace she likes, and any two prints she cares to have, and my little trefeuille diamond brooch —­oh! and the Hope she painted for me.  I love it very much, and my amethyst beads.

“Little Barbara is to have my blue watch, and Tommy my watch—­ there is no chain.

“Then Lucy is to have my Frances belt, because a long time ago the happiest days of my girlhood were when we first got to know Francie, and she wore that belt in the blue days at St. Moritz when we met her at church and I became her lover; and I want Lucy to have my two Blakes and the dear little Martin Schongaun Madonna and Baby—­dear little potbellied baby, sucking his little sacred thumb in a garden with a beautiful wall and a little pigeon-house turret.  I bought it myself, and do rather think it was clever of me—­all for a pound.

“And Posie is to have my little diamond wreaths, and she must leave them to Joan, [Footnote:  My niece, Mrs. Jamie Lindsay.] and she is to have my garnets too, because she used to like them, and my Imitation and Marcus Aurelius.