The funeral is to be next Wednesday,—I know that you will not be absent in spirit, though you cannot be there in presence as I hope to be. Mr. Plumptre will read the service at Kensal Green. I do not know if I helped dear L. in her life. I know that she has helped me in her death almost beyond my conception. I ‘never feared’ death, and I always felt theoretically how it was the ‘going home’ and that only, but I never felt it with the practical intensity of this week. I never entered before into half its beauty and its holiness,—I feel almost as if I could never associate sadness with the idea again. Let it come in what form it may,—‘God giveth us the Victory’. Just before she died, L. finished a story at which she had been working to compete for some magazine prize,—if it does not win this, we hope to get it published separately, as a memorial that will be beloved of many,—and indeed I hope it may come out in this form. I have offered to undertake the whole business. It is very pleasant to me that she has left this,—is it not to you? Goodbye, dear Lucy,—my letter is already enormous, but I don’t fear your criticisms. Yours affectionately, S. L. JEX-BLAKE.” The monotony of the life that followed was broken by one or two visits to Paris and one to Germany, and she had a great scheme of going to America to study the education of girls there. Here again, of course, she was met by the strong opposition of her Father, and again she was forced to put forward all the good and attractive points in her plan while herself profoundly convinced of its vagueness and of her own physical inadequacy. She saw a good deal at this time of Mrs. Ballantyne (afterwards Lady Jenkinson) whom she met first in Edinburgh at the house of her sister, Mrs. Burn Murdoch. This was the beginning of another lifelong friendship, most refreshing to both,—a friendship characterized almost equally by playful camaraderie and jesting, and by many long talks about the things that lie deep. “She _is_ just good and true and ‘clear’,” S. J.-B. had written in her diary some months before. She records how they went together to an evening Holy Communion, what they felt and said,—and goes on without a break: “Then, again she so delicious about my bonnet (_not_ calculated ‘To take upon it The guilt of her wandering soul’.) The first time. I saw you in it, nearly disliked you for it—only it was past that. Not your taste?—Then you oughtn’t to wear what isn’t,—nor to get 14s. 9d. bonnets! Poke into omnibuses?—Poke away, but wear proper bonnets. Tottenham Court Road?—No business to go there for bonnets. No money?—Then you must manage very badly! [Badly!—poor generous child,—counting every halfpenny that she might have the more to give away!]