My dearest Charlotte,--The time has come when it is some relief to write, but how shall I begin to tell the sadness of the saddest tragedy that has ever been put together? First the hours of fluctuating hope, and then the growing darkness of despair. She had previously asked whether Ethel and G. J.[51] had come down from London, and on being told that we were in the house was so glad. We were admitted at night, and only had to watch for three hours the peaceful breathing, slower, slower, slower, until the last. Oh, the unearthly beauty of that face! Nothing I have ever seen in flesh or in marble--nothing I could have ever conceived could approach it. But try to picture it as you knew it in life changed into something so yet more beautiful that it seemed no longer human, but the face of the angel that she was. Then in one room her little child, in another her mother, utterly broken by illness. For my own part I have never had a grief so great as this. Even in our sister's case there were elements of mitigation; but here absolutely none. Oh, it is bitter, bitter; so much of life's happiness emptied out and Edith, our own Edith, no longer here! In memory of this friend Mr. Romanes wrote a little poem called 'To a Bust,' and from this a few lines are given. There is one point to which the writer of this memoir would like to call attention. Mr. Romanes was incapable of exaggeration, of writing for effect, of insincerity. What he _wrote_ he _felt_, and his very simplicity and sweetness of character, his childlike trust in the sympathy of others, made him unreserved to his friends, to those whom he loved. 'Upon that Christmas Eve We saw thee pass away, * * * * * We heard the music of thy parting breath; We saw a light of angels in thy face-- A beauty so ineffable, that Death Was changed into a minister of Grace: * * * * * The mountains in their autumn hues, Of mountain reds and mountain blues, With heather and with highland bells, Await thy step on hills and fells; The spongy peat and dewy moss Remember where we used to cross-- Remember how they loved thy tread, Make for thy steps their softest bed: The murmuring streams are calling thee, The woodlands sigh in every tree; Yet when I walk upon the shore, The waves are whispering--nevermore!