I want to tell you again that I love you dearly, that I have never loved anybody but you, and that no marriage vows will keep me from loving you to the last.
I want to thank you for the great, great love you have given me in return—all the way back from the time when I was a child. Oh, my dearest, may God for ever bless you for the sunshine you have brought into my life—every single day of it, joyful days and sorrowful ones, bright days and dark, but all shining with the glory of your love.
Never allow yourself to think that my life has not been a happy one. Looking back on it now I feel as if I have always had happiness. And when I have not had happiness I have had something far higher and better—blessedness.
I have had such joy in my life, dear—joy in the beauty of the world, in the sunshine and the moon and the stars and the flowers and the songs of the birds, and then (apart from the divine love that is too holy to speak about) in my religion, in my beloved Church, in the love of my dear mother and my sweet child, and above all—above all in you.
I feel a sense of sacred thankfulness to God for giving you to me, and if it has not been for long in this life, it will be for ever in the next.
So good-bye, my dearest me—just for a little moment! My dearest one, Good-bye!
MARY O'NEILL.
MARY O'NEILL'S LAST NOTE
WRITTEN ON THE FLY-LEAVES OF HER MISSAL
AUGUST 9-10.