ly
went out, fears of an explosion were whispered about, and many persons
left the room. Bessie put her hand in Lady Grimthorpe's and said: "I
have no fear whatever, with you. Go or stay as you think best;" and they
stayed.

She would return from these concerts so bright and beaming, and give
such pleasure to her father by her animated accounts of them, that he
learnt to associate her enjoyment with a scarlet cloak she then wore. He
said he would have her portrait taken, and in that cloak, for she never
looked so well in anything else. Some time later this was done by Sir W.
Boxall, and the frontispiece to this volume represents a picture which
gives as much of the spiritual beauty and delicacy of Bessie's youthful
face as the painter's art can render.

CHAPTER VI

A SENSE OF LOSS

"When the fire is strong, it soon appropriates to itself the matter
which is heaped on it, and consumes it, and rises higher by means
of this very material."--MARCUS AURELIUS.

Bessie Gilbert, when she was about twenty, differed but little from the
sisters around her. She could read Italian, French, and German, and her
mental culture had been an education of the true and best kind. She had
an open mind, an ardent desire for knowledge, and a warm interest in all
the ways and works of humanity. The one accomplishment possible to her
was music, and from her childhood her singing and playing had given
pleasure to herself and others. "She never could sing out of tune:" says
a musical friend.

She readily gained friends, for she was sympathetic and kind, and
inspired others with confidence. A lady, very young and shy at that
time, remembers calling in Queen Anne Street, and feeling alarmed at
every one except Bessie. Sitting by her side, and talking to her, the
shyest were at their ease.

No hardships in her lot had up to this time come home to her. Indeed,
it is very doubtful if the want of sight to those born blind or those
who have lost the memory of sight, is in youth a greater conscious
privation than the want of wings. By degrees a different condition is
conceivable, because it is known in a certain way from description; but
as no person born blind can exactly realise what sight is, or what it
does, there is no conscious sense of loss. No person born blind can
comprehend the nature of the impression that sight conveys. Red may be
as "the sound of a trumpet," blue as the outer air, and green a
something connect