m its evil, enabling us to lead a heavenly existence
on earth, and so to span over the chasm which divides us from heaven.

Perhaps some of us may wonder that Julie should need lessons of
encouragement and comfort who was so apt a teacher herself; but
however ready she may always have been to hope for others, she was
thoroughly humble-minded about herself. On one day near the end, when
she had received some letter of warm praise about her writings, a
friend said in joke, "I wonder your head is not turned by such
things"; and Julie replied: "I don't think praise really hurts me,
because, when I read my own writings over again they often seem to me
such 'bosh'; and then, too, you know I lead such a useless life, and
there is so little I _can_ do, it is a great pleasure to know I may
have done _some_ good."

It pleased her to get a letter from Sir Evelyn Wood, written from the
Soudan, telling how he had cried over _Laetus_; and she was almost more
gratified to get an anonymous expression from "One of the Oldest
Natives of the Town of Aldershot" of his "warm and grateful sense of
the charm of her delightful references to a district much loved of its
children, and the emotion he felt in recognizing his birthplace so
tenderly alluded to." Julie certainly set no value on her own actual
MSS., for she almost invariably used them up when they were returned
from the printers, by writing on the empty sides, and destroying them
after they had thus done double duty. She was quite amused by a
relation who begged for the sheets of "Jackanapes," and so rescued
them from the flames!

On the 11th of May an increase of suffering made it necessary that my
sister should undergo another operation, as the one chance of
prolonging her life. This ordeal she faced with undaunted courage,
thanking God that she was able to take chloroform easily, and only
praying He would end her sufferings speedily, as He thought best,
since she feared her physical ability to bear them patiently was
nearly worn out.

Her prayer was answered, when two days later, free from pain, she
entered into rest. On the 16th of May she was buried in her parish
churchyard of Trull, near Taunton, in a grave literally lined with
moss and flowers;--so many floral wreaths and crosses were sent from
all parts of England, that when the grave was filled up they entirely
covered it, not a speck of soil could be seen; her first sleep in
mother earth was beneath a coverlet of fragra