No record of Bessie's illness would be adequate which did not speak of the love that lightened every burden laid upon her. Sisters and brothers bound by so strong a bond of family love as the Gilberts are even more closely united by affliction. No day passed without its tribute of affectionate remembrance from absent members of the family. Her eldest brother, Mr. Wintle, always spent the afternoon of Sunday with her, when she was able to receive him. The Vicar of Heversham, the beloved "Tom" of her youth, saw her in London whenever it was possible. Married sisters visited and wrote to her, and a whole cloud of nephews and nieces hovered around her. She valued highly the friendship as well as the skill of Mr. Sibley, the surgeon who for many years attended her. She depended upon him for almost daily visits. Very little could be done to arrest the progress of her malady; nothing to save her from much inevitable suffering. Alleviation, not cure, was all that could be looked for, and he was always ready to attempt, and often able to effect, some mitigation of the ills she had to endure. Among many others who were kind and helpful, ready to aid her work and so to give her almost the only pleasure she could receive, were the Duke of Westminster, Lord and Lady Selborne, Madame Antoinette Sterling, who would sometimes sing to her, and the old and dear friends of the family, Dean and Mrs. Hook. No word can here be said of the two sisters, whose whole life was given up to her; none would be adequate. They knew, and they were known. That is enough. We may not lift the veil under which they passed so many years with Bessie in her long agony. FOOTNOTE: [9] From _Lyra Germanica_, second series. CHAPTER XXIII THE END "In Thy light we shall see light." The summer of 1884 in London was hot and exhausting. In Bessie's helpless condition excessive heat caused her real suffering; for she was fixed immovable upon her couch. But if she longed for cool breezes, the scent of flowers and song of birds, she uttered no murmur in their absence. The slight improvement recognised with so much gratitude in the spring was not permanent, but the "change" she anticipated was at hand. "I feel as if there would be a change," she had said. The autumn showed that she had seriously lost ground.