humberland shore. The Duke of
Devonshire, whose infirmity of deafness did not interfere with his
enjoyment of music, was an enthusiastic admirer of Mrs. Arkwright, and
her constant and affectionate friend. Their proximity of residence in
Derbyshire made their opportunities of meeting very frequent, and when
the Arkwrights visited London, Devonshire House was, if they chose it,
their hotel. His attachment to her induced him, towards the end of his
life, to take a residence in the poor little village of Cullercoats,
whither she loved to resort, and where she died. I possess a copy of a
beautiful drawing of a head of Mrs. Arkwright, given to me by the duke,
for whom the original was executed. It is only a head, with the eyes
raised to heaven, and the lips parted, as in the act of singing; and the
angelic sweetness of the countenance may perhaps suggest, to those who
never heard her, the voice that seemed like that face turned to sound.

So Fanny Kemble married, and Adelaide Decamp came and lived with us, and
was the good angel of our home. All intercourse between the two (till
then inseparable companions) ceased for many years, and my aunt began
her new life with a bitter bankruptcy of love and friendship, happiness
and hope, that would have dried the sap of every sweet affection, and
made even goodness barren, in many a woman's heart for ever.

Without any home but my father's house, without means of subsistence but
the small pittance which he was able to give her, in most grateful
acknowledgment of her unremitting care of us, without any joys or hopes
but those of others, without pleasure in the present or expectation in
the future, apparently without memory of the past, she spent her whole
life in the service of my parents and their children, and lived and
moved and had her being in a serene, unclouded, unvarying atmosphere of
cheerful, self-forgetful content that was heroic in its absolute
unconsciousness. She is the only person I can think of who appeared to
me to have fulfilled Wordsworth's conception of

"Those blessed ones who do God's will and know it not."

I have never seen either man or woman like her, in her humble
excellence, and I am thankful that, knowing what the circumstances of
her whole life were, she yet seems to me the happiest human being I have
known. She died, as she had lived, in the service of others. When I went
with my father to America, my mother remained in England, and my aunt
came wi