“My dear Violet,—As
when this reaches you, you are likely to be with my brothers, as well as my
dear father, I may tell my story at once to all I have now left to care for
besides my poor babes. Sophia’s
mind had been during many weeks in a very unsettled condition, but it pleased
God to restore her to full possession of herself for the last fortnight, and,
though her bodily suffering was occasionally acute, she surveyed her
approaching departure with calmness and humble serenity, and at different times
signified her farewell feelings and desires to us all in the sweetest manner. I
think no one ever lived a more innocent life, and it is my
| 176 | LIFE OF J. G. LOCKHART. |
“I have purchased a plot of ground in the New Cemetery on the Harrow Road—a wide, spacious garden with a beautiful prospect—and that morning, an hour before we reach the spot, the bodies of Anne and Johnnie will have been removed thither from the vaults of Marylebone, that the sisters may be henceforth side by side, and the child in the same dust with his mother. . . . The place will be one that we can visit from time to time with ease, and, I do not doubt, with a sense of pleasure.
“Perhaps I am indulging feelings at which many would exclaim as savouring too much of the dreams of the mere fancy. But I don’t believe you will take such a view of the matter. My dearest mother has a resting-place of which I can think with satisfaction, a solemn and awful one; but, except Westminster Abbey, there is no old burial ground here that I could have been able to look at with comfort, and remember that it contained the ashes of my wife. . . .”
