"Five weeks ago Arthur went to join the Prince of Wales at Alexandria. He was very unwilling to leave his mother, but he took the appointment by her especial request, and she was delighted with it. He took leave of her in the early morning, receiving farewells and blessings as she lay on the same bed, from whence she was unable afterwards to speak one word to her other children. When he went, my mother was very ill with bronchitis. Aunt Kitty also caught it, but wrote frequently, saying that 'her illness did not signify, she was only anxious about my mother.' It did signify, however. She became rapidly weaker. Congestion of the lungs followed, and she gradually sank. The Vaughans were sent for, and Mary was with her. We were ready to have gone at any moment, if she had been the least bit better, but she would not have been able to have spoken to the mother, perhaps not have known her, so that I am thankful for my sweet mother's sake that she should have been here in her quiet peaceful home.
"There were none of the ordinary features of an illness. Aunt Kitty suffered no pain at all: it was a mere passing out of one gentle sleep into another, till the end.
"Kate wrote—'What a solemn hour was that when we were sitting in silence round her bed, watching the gradual cessation of breathing—the gradual but sure approach of the end! Not a sound was heard but the sad wailing of the wind as her soul was passing away. She lay quite still: you would hardly have known who it was, the expression was so changed—Oh no, you would never have known it was the dear, dear face we had loved so fondly. And then, when all ceased, and there was stillness, and we thought it had been the last breath, came a deep sigh, then a pause—then a succession of deep sighs at long intervals, and it was only when no more came that we knew she was gone. Charles then knelt down and prayed for us, "especially for our dear absent brother, that he might be comforted"—and then we rose up and took our last look of that revered countenance.'
"When people are dead, how they are glorified in one's mind! I was almost as much grieved as my mother herself, and I also felt a desolation. Yet, on looking back, how few words of tenderness can I remember receiving from Aunt Kitty—some marigolds picked for me in the palace garden when I was ill at Norwich—a few acknowledgments of my later devotion to my mother in illness—an occasional interest in my drawing: this is almost all. What really makes it a personal sorrow is, that in the recollection of my oppressed and desolate boyhood, the figure of Aunt Kitty always looms forth as that of Justice. She was invariably just. Whatever others might say, she never allowed herself to be biassed against me, or indeed against any one else, contrary to her own convictions.
"I went with Mary and Kate to the funeral in Alderley churchyard. We all assembled there in the inner school-room, close to the Rectory, which had been the home of my aunt's happiest days, in the centre of which lay the coffin covered with a pall, but garlanded with long green wreaths, while bunches of snowdrops and white crocuses fell tenderly over the sides. 'I know that my Redeemer liveth' was sung as we passed out of the church to the churchyard, where it poured with rain. The crowds of poor people present, however, liked this, for 'blessed,' they said, 'is the corpse that the rain falls on.'"
During this sad winter it was a great pleasure to us to have our faithful old friend the Baroness von Bunsen at St. Leonards, with two of her daughters—Frances and Matilda. She had been near my mother at the time of her greatest sorrow at Rome, and her society was very congenial at this time. We were quite hoping that she would have made St. Leonards her permanent winter-home, when she was recalled to live in Germany by the death of the darling daughter of her heart—Theodora von Ungern-Sternberg—soon after giving birth, at Carlsruhe, to her fifth child.
In this winter I went to stay at Hurstmonceaux Rectory with Dr. Wellesley, who was never fitted to be a country clergyman, but who never failed to be the most agreeable of hosts and of men. In person he was very like the Duke of Wellington, with black eyes, shaggy eyebrows, and snow-white hair. His courtesy and kindness were unfailing, especially to women, be their rank what it might. A perfect linguist, he had the most extraordinary power of imitating Italians in their own peculiar dialects. Most diverting was his account of a sermon which he heard preached in the Coliseum. I can only give the words—the tone, the gestures are required to give it life. It was on the day on which the old Duke of Torlonia died. He had been the great enemy of the monks and nuns, and of course they hated him. On that day, being a Friday, the Confraternità della Misericordia met, as usual, at four o'clock, in SS. Cosmo and Damiano in the Forum, and went chanting in procession to the Coliseum. Those who remember those days will recall in imagination the strong nasal twang of "Sant' Bartolome, ora pro nobis; Santa Agata, ora pro nobis; Sant' Silvestro, ora pro nobis," &c. Arrived at the Coliseum, the monk ascended the pulpit, and began in the familiar style of those days, in which sermons were usually opened with "How do you do?" and some remarks about the weather.
"Buon giorno, cari fratelli miei. Buon giorno, care sorelle—come state tutti? State bene? Oh, mi fa piacere, mi fa molto piacere! Fa bell' tempo stasera, non e vero? un tempo piacevole—cielo sereno. Oh ma piacevole di molto!
"Ebbene, cari fratelli miei—Ebbene, care sorelle—sapete cosa c' è di nuovo—sapete che cos' è successo stammattina in città? Non lo sapete—maraviglia! Oh, non vi disturbate—nò—nò—nò—non vi disturbate affatto—ve lo dirò, io ve lo spieghierò tutto.