keston, in Derbyshire, where she had implored
"Our Lady of Dale" to bring about her husband's conversion. Entering
the Catholic Church there, she knelt before the altar and cried "Here
I asked! Here I obtained! Our Lady of Dale, deliver his soul from
Purgatory!" [671]

Burton's remains arrived--by "long sea"--in England on February 12th
(1891) and were placed temporarily in the crypt of the Catholic Church
at Mortlake; and Lady Burton then devoted the whole of her time to
arranging for a public funeral in England.

To Mrs. E. J. Burton she wrote (23rd March 1891): "You must have thought
me so ungrateful for not answering your sweet letter of five months
ago, but, indeed, I have felt it deeply. Losing the man who had been my
earthly God for thirty-five years, was like a blow on the head, and for
a long time I was completely stunned." [672]

178. The Funeral at Mortlake, 15th June 1891.

The sum of L700 having been raised by Burton's admirers, a mausoleum,
made of dark Forest of Dean stone and white Carrara marble, and shaped
like an Arab tent, was erected in the Catholic Cemetery at Mortlake.
Over the door is an open book inscribed with the names of Sir Richard
and Lady Burton, and below the book runs a ribbon with the words "This
monument is erected to his memory by his loving countrymen." Among those
present at the funeral were Major St. George Burton, Dr. E. J. Burton,
Mr. Mostyn Pryce, Lord Arundell, Mr. Gerald Arundell, Lord Gerard, Lord
Northbrook, Mr. Van Zeller, Dr. Baker, Dr. Leslie, Mr. F. F. Arbuthnot,
Commander Cameron, and Mr. Justin Huntley McCarthy; and Canon Wenham
officiated.

The coffin was laid in the middle of the church upon trestles, which
were covered by "a cramoisie velvet pall." Tall silver candlesticks
with wax candles surrounded it. An unseen choir sang solemn chants. Lady
Burton, "a pathetic picture of prayerful sorrow," occupied a prie-dieu
at the coffin's side. When the procession filed out priests perfumed
the coffin with incense and sprinkled it with holy water, acolytes bore
aloft their flambeaux, and the choir, now seen to be robed in black,
sang epicedial hymns. The service had all been conducted in Latin, but
at this point Canon Wenham, turning to the coffin, said in English,
"with a smile and a voice full of emotion, [673] 'Enter now into
Paradise.'"

Lady Burton then laid on the coffin a bunch of forget-me-nots, and said,
"Here lies the best husband that ever lived, th