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Memoir

of letters was as tender, as abundant, and almost as satisfying as that of personal presence.

Of this united life there is now no more to narrate. In 1895, after three months of altered health, the last fortnight of Louisa's life was spent at Wimbledon, whither she had been conveyed in hopes of the benefit of a change, and there, after thirty-four hours of entire unconsciousness, she painlessly expired on May 24, three months and four days after her seventy-first birthday.

The picture of this "violet life," as one who of all her friends perhaps knew her best, tenderly called it, would not be complete without some touches of what cannot well be supplied by the hand of a near relation, the aspect presented to outside observers. I will premise that of the qualities which are apparent in external life, those which may be singled out as most characteristic of her were her translucent truthfulness and her tender humanity. These traits were well summed up by the above-mentioned friend, who spoke of her as this "guileless, gentlest of natures." Another who knew her well wrote, "Only those who loved her best could know the

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