abroad in the spring, but the Duke returned in time to preside at the
June meeting. Bessie never dropped any of the links in her chain, and
her early life at Chichester had given her many valuable allies.

In her long days of enforced inactivity she would recall to mind visits
to Goodwood, to Arundel, interest expressed and shown in the objects
she had at heart, and would redouble her efforts to raise up friends for
the blind.

Meantime there was a steady deterioration in her own physical condition.

The malady which had been making insidious progress for so long was
degeneration of the spinal cord. The disease is one that generally owes
its origin to accident or injury, but so far as could be ascertained
Bessie had never met with either.

The physicians who attended her throughout the last years of her life
inclined to the view that the poison in the blood left by scarlet fever
was the cause not only of the condition of the throat, from which she
suffered throughout her whole life (it will be remembered that she could
only drink in sips), but also of this degeneration of the spinal cord.

Looking back, the members of her family recalled to mind that her powers
of motion had not for many years been free and unimpeded. The
significant entries in diary and letters, as to her moving and walking
better, will not be forgotten. But the true cause of this had not been
suspected, except by Dr. Little; for mischief to the spinal cord may be
carried very far before there is any outward sign to manifest it. The
power of motion and merely animal functions are affected by it; but
intelligence remains alert and the brain power unaffected. The symptoms
which accompany it are at first attributed to weakness, overwork,
physical fatigue, any of which would be sufficient to account for them
before the disease has reached the stage in which its true nature is
unmistakably revealed. Mental trouble will often accelerate the progress
of this malady, and occasion its more rapid development. This cause had
also been at work.

The death of her father in 1870 was sudden and most unexpected to
Bessie. The subsequent giving up of the two homes, at Chichester and in
London, which long years had endeared to her; the necessity of planting
herself in and learning to accommodate herself to a new house, with all
the old familiar landmarks swept away--all these things were sources of
suffering to one of her delicate nervous organisation; and doubtl