tone to Lady John Russell_

_April_, 1853

MY DEAR LADY JOHN,--I thank you heartily for your very kind note.
You know well from your own experience how happy I must be now.

We have indeed great reason to be thankful: the approbation of such
men as your husband is no slight encouragement and no slight
happiness. I assure you we have felt this deeply. After great
anxiety one feels more as if in a happy dream than in real life and
you will not laugh at the relief to me of seeing him well after
such an effort and after such labour as it has been for weeks....

We have often thought of you in your illness and heard of your
well-doing with sincere pleasure.

Once more thanking you, believe me, dear Lady John,

Yours sincerely,

CATHERINE GLADSTONE

I must tell you with what comfort and interest I watched Lord
John's countenance during the speech.

On March 28, 1853, Lady John's daughter, Mary Agatha, was born at Pembroke
Lodge. Lady Minto was well enough to write a bright and happy letter of
congratulation on the birth of her granddaughter, but her health was
gradually failing, and on July 21st she died at Nervi, in Italy.

PEMBROKE LODGE, _August_ 3, 1853

The world is changed to me for ever since I last wrote. My dear,
dear Mama has left it, and I shall never again see that face so
long and deeply loved. Tuesday, July 26th, was the day we heard.
Thursday, July 21st, the day her angel spirit was summoned to that
happy home where tears are wiped from all eyes. I pray to think
more of her, glorious, happy and at rest, than of ourselves. But it
is hard, very, very hard to part. O Mama, Mama, I call and you do
not come. I dream of you, I wake, and you are not there.

_Lord John to Lady John Russell_

MINTO, _August_ 10, 1853

You will feel a melancholy pang at the date of the place from which
I write. It is indeed very sorrowful to see Lord Minto and so many
of his sons and daughters assembled to perform the last duties to
her who was the life and comfort of them all.... The place is
looking beautiful, and your mother's garden was never so lovely. It
is pleasant in all these sorrows and trials to see a family so
united in affection, and so totally without feelings or objects
that partake of selfishness or ill-will.

The old poet Rogers, who had been attached to Lady John