I have never worked so hard in my life (for a continuance), and I have never been in such good health. I am absolutely well, (and what a blessing that is after all these years!) I eat and walk and sleep perfectly, have no pains and aches, and the sweetest of tempers!
I only wish Mother could peep in and see me in my little den!—dog and Alice and all.
With very much love, darling, to Daddy and Carry,
Yours lovingly,
Soph.”
“Saturday. Nov. 14th. [Diary.] In sober fact I get on grandly. Better and stronger than I have ever been.”
“Monday, Nov. 16th. Oh, why, why didn’t they telegraph at any rate? If people only would do as they are asked! Carry’s note just come after Chemistry. ‘I believe if you could start from New York today, you would have no prospect whatever of seeing him alive’.”
“Sunday, Nov. 29th. Brighton. Reached home about 10.30 a.m. yesterday (after a rush through Dublin, Cork, etc.) to find that he had died ten days even before that letter arrived. Nov. 6th. 9.50 a.m.”
It seems a pity for her own sake that S. J.-B. could not have been with her Father during those last days of his life, for his was certainly one of the cases in which
“The soul’s dark cottage, battered and decayed,