MY DEAR MRS. BURROWES--I was very grateful for your most kind affectionate letter, although I have not written to tell you so. For some time I really could hardly do anything. No loss in the world could be what this loss is to me. I am always wanting him, always missing him, still I am now better able to feel the blessedness for him, and also better able to think of his being spared suffering and infirmity, which would probably have increased; and yet in spite of all this I often cannot help feeling how my heart would rebound with life if I could know that he could be here again with us. But I long for the hope of being with him to grow stronger and stronger, so that it may be more and more a living power within me, and a real comfort. I am much better and stronger than I was; but cannot say much for my powers of walking. I cannot say that I take much interest in things yet, and am often oppressed with a feeling of the dreary length of the days without seeing him or hearing anything about him; but as you so kindly say in your letter I shall hope, when able to do so, to work better than I have done if God will grant me help to strengthen me for this work. I did go up from hence to London for the day for our May Committee, and am very glad I did so, and made a beginning of taking up the work again. I have also done a little towards it in other ways, but just now my own nice maid is having a little holiday, and instead Mrs. Gadney is with me; she cannot write much, while I am not up to much business yet. Lucy, I am sure, would send you her love, but I am writing in my room. She would have written to you, but that I said I would do so myself, as I had intended for some time to write and thank you for your very affectionate letter.... Believe me, my dear Mrs. Burrowes, yours affectionately, BESSIE GILBERT. Miss Mackenzie, sister of Bishop Mackenzie, wrote: I shall never forget his kind fatherliness and his beautiful courtesy and his loving thoughtfulness for every one. What a comfort it is to have all that to look back upon, but now whilst it is all so fresh your hearts must bleed. Dear Bessie, I am so thankful you have your work, your calling, your vocation to attend to, and in trying to alleviate the troubles of others, as you have always done, you will find the best relief to your own sorrow.