She died at Lynford, from the result of a fall on a parquet floor, on the 2nd September 1894, aged 82, full of physical vigour and intellectual brightness, and still remarkable for her personal beauty; finding life to the last full of many interests, but impressed by the sadness of having outlived nearly all her early friends and contemporaries.
She lingered nearly three weeks after the actual fall, during which her affectionate gratitude to all who watched and tended her, her bright recognition when faces she loved came near, her quick response to all that was said and done, were beautiful and touching to see, and very sweet to remember. Her last words to the writer of these lines when he bade her farewell were, "My fondest love to my beloved Julian;" our invalid son at Foxwold, for whom she always evinced the deepest affection and sympathy.
In her funeral sermon, preached by Canon Scott, himself an intimate friend, in the beautiful church she had built for Cambridge, to a crowded and deeply sympathetic audience, he eloquently observed: "Greatly indeed was she indebted to God; richly had she been endowed with gifts of every kind; of natural character, of special intelligence, of winning attractiveness, which compelled homage from all who came under the charm of her influence; with the result of widespread renown and unbounded wealth.... Therefore it was that the blessing of God came in another form—by the discipline of suffering and trial. There was the trial of loneliness. Soon bereft, as she was, of her husband, of whose affection we may judge by the way in which he had laid all he possessed at her feet; French and Catholic, living amongst those who were not of her faith or nation, though enjoying their devoted friendship. With advancing years, deprived by death even of those intimate friends, she was lonely in a sense throughout her life.... Nor must it be omitted that her great gift to Cambridge was not merely an easy one out of superfluous wealth, but that it involved some personal sacrifice. Friends of late had missed the sight of costly jewels, which for years had formed a part of her personal adornment. What had become of a necklace of rarest pearls, now no longer worn?—They had been sacrificed for the erection of this very church."
Again, in a Pastoral Letter by the Roman Catholic Bishop of Northampton to his flock, dated the 28th of November 1894, he says: "We take occasion of this our Advent pastoral, to commend to your prayers the soul of one who has recently passed away, Mrs. Lyne Stephens. Her innumerable works of religion and charity during her life, force us to acknowledge our indebtedness to her; she built at her sole cost the churches of Lynford, Shefford, and Cambridge, and she gave a large donation for the church at Wellingborough. It was she who gave the presbytery and the endowment of Lynford, the rectory at Cambridge, and our own residence at Northampton. By a large donation she greatly helped the new episcopal income fund, and she was generous to the Holy Father on the occasion of his first jubilee. Our indebtedness was increased by her bequests, one to ourselves as the Bishop, one for the maintenance of the fabric of the Cambridge Church, another for the Boy's Home at Shefford, and a fourth to the Clergy Fund of this Diocese. Her name has been inscribed in our Liber Vitæ, among the great benefactors whether living or dead, and for these we constantly offer up prayers that God may bless their good estate in life, and after death receive them to their reward."
To the inmates of Foxwold she was for nearly a quarter of a century a true and loving friend, paying them frequent little visits, and entering with the deepest sympathy into the lives of those who also loved her very dearly.
The house bears, through her generosity, many marks of her exquisite taste and broad bounty, and her memory will always be fragrant and beautiful to those who knew her.
There are three portraits of her at Roehampton. The first, as a most winsome, lovely girl, drawn life-size by a great pastellist in the reign of Louis Philippe; the second, as a handsome matron, in the happy years of her all too short married life; and the last, by Carolus Duran, was painted in Paris in 1888. This has been charmingly engraved, and represents her as a most lovely old lady, with abundant iron-grey hair and large violet eyes, very wide apart. She was intellectually as well as physically one of the strongest women, and she never had a day's illness, until her fatal accident, in her life. Her conversation and power of repartee was extremely clever and brilliant. A shrewd observer of character, she rarely made a mistake in her first estimate of people, and her sometimes adverse judgments, which at first sight appeared harsh, were invariably justified by the history of after-events.
Her charity was illimitable, and was always, as far as possible, concealed. A simple-lived, brave, warm-hearted, generous woman, her death has created a peculiar void, which will not in our time be again filled:—
"For some we loved, the loveliest and the best,