nd trained to sweet firmness and unwavering endurance; but
these showed themselves in the fitful irregularity of a somewhat wilful
childhood.

In accordance with the precept of her father, Bessie wanted to do
everything that other children did. She _would_ try, and nothing but her
own individual experience would convince her of the limitations of her
powers. The fire and the kettle were great temptations to her. One day
in the nursery at Oxford she tried to reach the kettle, slipped and fell
in front of the fire, tried to save herself by grasping the hot bars of
the grate, and the poor little hands were badly burnt. We may be sure
how the parents would suffer with their blind child in such an accident,
and yet they would not encourage a panic, or allow any unnecessary
restrictions to be put upon her actions.

A few years after scarlet fever the Gilbert children had measles. All
memory of the occurrence would have faded out had it not been for
Bessie. Her throat, as we have said, was ragged and impeded, and
throughout life the only way in which she could swallow any liquid was
in very small sips and with a curious little twist of nose and mouth. In
after life she used to compare herself to Pascal, saying how much better
her own case was, for Pascal was obliged to have his medicine warmed
before he could sip it, whilst she could take hers cold.

There are some who still remember how they pitied her when they saw
Bessie sitting up in bed sipping a black draught, and they can recall
the resolution with which she did it, and the conscientiousness with
which she took all, to the last drop.

Some twenty years later she was walking in the garden at Eversley with
Charles Kingsley, and he said to her, "When you take medicine you drink
it all up. I spill some on my frock, and then I have to take it over
again." It was one of those swift intuitive glances of his; he saw in
the delicate woman the same patient courage that had characterised the
child. She had much suffering from her throat throughout life, and as a
little girl was nearly choked by a lozenge. The noteworthy point of the
incident is that in the wildest tumult of alarm of those around her, the
child was quite calm.

There was so little sense of her inferiority to others in early youth
that it was only as the sisters grew up that they realised how much
Bessie knew, and how much she could do, in spite of her blindness. As a
child they all looked upon her as very clev