industrious, sensible--thoroughly well to suit him, & that there is true & deep love between them--also, she took to me very much, & I feel will be quite another child to me. It is besides no little joy to me to find how Percy has confided in me in this & chooses me as the friend to whom he tells all--far from being any separation, as sometimes happens, this love of his seems to draw us closer together. Only I am very, very anxious for his sake to see him in a better berth--they would let her marry him on £300 a year; now he has only £175. He is quite competent to manage iron or copper or tin works, only he looks so young, not having yet any beard or moustache to speak of. That is the end of my long story. This will reach you on your birthday perhaps, my dearest Friend; at any rate it must bear you a greeting of love and fond remembrance for that dear day such as my heart will send you when it actually comes: patiently waiting heart, with the fibres of love and boundless trust & joy & hope which bind me to you bedded deep, grown to be, during these long years, a very part of its immortal substance, untouchable by age or varying moods or sickness, or death itself, as I surely believe. I long more than words can tell to know how it fares with you now in health and spirit. My children are all well & growing & unfolding to my heart's content. Beatrice & Herbert deeply influenced by your Poems. Good-bye, my dearest Friend. A. GILCHRIST. LETTER XXVIII ANNE GILCHRIST TO WALT WHITMAN _Address 1 Torriano Gardens Camden Road, N. W. London Earls Colne Aug. 28, 1875._ MY DEAREST FRIEND: Your letter came to me just when I most needed the comfort of it--when I was watching and tending my dear Mother as she gently, slowly, with but little suffering, sank to rest. There was no sick bed to sit by--we got her up and out into the air and sunshine for an hour or two even the day before she died--No disease, only the stomach could not do its work any longer & for the last three weeks she lived wholly on stimulants, suffering somewhat from sickness. She drew her last breath very gently before daybreak on the 15th inst., in her 90th year, which she had entered in Jan. She looked very beautiful in death, notwithstanding her great age--as well she might--tranquil sunset that it was of a beautiful day--a fulfilled life--joy & delight of her father in youth (who used to call her the apple of his eye), good wife, devoted, self-sacrificing, wise mother--patient, courageous sufferer through thirty years of chronic rheumatism, which, however, neutralized & ceased its pains the last few years--unsurpassed, & indeed I think unsurpassable, in conscientiousness--in the strong sense of duty & perfect obedience to that highest sense--she is one of those who amply justify your large faith in women. I do not need to tell you anything, my dearest friend--you know all--I feel your strong comforting hand--I press it very close.