“Oct. 8th. [1879.] ... I have a very charming little brougham, which my Mother gave me; and a beautiful horse, quiet as a lamb and strong as a bull, from Miss Du Pre. Altogether it is an extremely smart turn-out, and I should like so much to show it to you! I hope I shall this summer. You must come then if possible,—it is so hard to be apart so many years!

I am so sorry my Father’s carriage is worn out. That little gift was such a pleasure to him and almost the last thing he did. I think the letter in which he told me he had paid the money to my bankers was the very last I had from him—dear old man!...

Dr. King Chambers gave the inaugural address at our School this year, I moved the vote of thanks to him,[[140]] as it was my one day in London. I will try to send you a report.”

Later she writes,

“I have rather a sore heart today, for dear old Turk has just died in my arms.... He seemed about as usual today, but rose from where he was by the kitchen fire, walked into the scullery and fell over. They fetched me, and he gave just two gasps in my arms and died. It seems a bit of one’s life gone, when he had been in it for 13 years!—and a Boston bit too.”

“Nov. 29th. 1879.... We are in great excitement here with the visit of Gladstone to Edinburgh,[[141]] and his speeches. I send you two papers today, to show you how he alludes in one speech to the sympathy of women with his cause,—I have written a short letter in today’s Scotsman asking if it would not be better that they should be able legitimately to express that sympathy through the Suffrage.... How I hope and trust to see you here next year!”

Apparently Miss Pechey did not think Gladstone’s appreciation of women sufficiently adequate to be worth acknowledging, for a few days later S. J.-B. writes to her,

“I like Gladstone much better than you do, or I shouldn’t have written as in the Scotsman, but no doubt he is wrong about women,—his wife’s fault however, I fancy. Miss Irby went to stay with them for a day or two last year, and I know he admires her hugely,—perhaps she may be a means of grace to him.”

It was about this time that the opinions of a number of representative women were collected on the subject of the Suffrage. S. J.-B. at first declined to respond, but, on Miss Irby’s remonstrance she wrote the following lines, which are quoted here because they represent fairly the calm and decided attitude she took upon the subject throughout life:

“If I correctly understand the British Constitution, one of its fundamental principles is that Taxation and Representation should go together, and that every person taxed should have a voice in the election of those by whom taxes are imposed. If this is a wrong principle, it should be exchanged as soon as possible for some other, so that we may know what is the real basis of representation in this country; if it is a right principle, it must admit of general application, and I am unable to see that the sex of the tax-paying householder should enter into the question at all.