ted and wrote to her, and a whole cloud of nephews and
nieces hovered around her.

She valued highly the friendship as well as the skill of Mr. Sibley, the
surgeon who for many years attended her. She depended upon him for
almost daily visits. Very little could be done to arrest the progress of
her malady; nothing to save her from much inevitable suffering.
Alleviation, not cure, was all that could be looked for, and he was
always ready to attempt, and often able to effect, some mitigation of
the ills she had to endure.

Among many others who were kind and helpful, ready to aid her work and
so to give her almost the only pleasure she could receive, were the
Duke of Westminster, Lord and Lady Selborne, Madame Antoinette Sterling,
who would sometimes sing to her, and the old and dear friends of the
family, Dean and Mrs. Hook. No word can here be said of the two sisters,
whose whole life was given up to her; none would be adequate. They knew,
and they were known. That is enough. We may not lift the veil under
which they passed so many years with Bessie in her long agony.

FOOTNOTE:

[9] From _Lyra Germanica_, second series.

CHAPTER XXIII

THE END

"In Thy light we shall see light."

The summer of 1884 in London was hot and exhausting. In Bessie's
helpless condition excessive heat caused her real suffering; for she was
fixed immovable upon her couch. But if she longed for cool breezes, the
scent of flowers and song of birds, she uttered no murmur in their
absence.

The slight improvement recognised with so much gratitude in the spring
was not permanent, but the "change" she anticipated was at hand. "I feel
as if there would be a change," she had said.

The autumn showed that she had seriously lost ground.

"Her throat," continues her sister N., "always painful and
irritable, had now become a source of great suffering. There was
constant pain, greatly increased every time she swallowed; whilst
her weakness made it important that she should take plenty of
nourishment. A troublesome cough came on; fits of coughing that
lasted for hours and exhausted her terribly. At the same time
neuralgia and rheumatism attacked the left leg and thigh, and
violent pain caused her, with all her courage and patience, to
scream in the most heartrending manner. Her whole body became most
sensitive to touch, and yet she was obliged to be moved on account
of the c