"_Sept. 10, 1870._--Lea has just been saying, 'You may go and count
the trees to-day, for I've nothing for you for dinner. The
butcher's never been, good-for-nothing fellow! he's gone gawking
after that Empress, I'll be bound.'"
Almost all my Mother's nieces and many old friends came to see her in
the summer, generally staying only two or three days, but her dear
cousin, Charlotte Leycester, came for the whole of September. While she
was here at Holmhurst I was persuaded to go away for two days, and went
to see Dean Alford at his cottage of Vine's Gate in the Kentish Hills.
He was more charming than ever, and more eccentric, never wearing
stockings, and shoes only when he went out. I was miserable, in my short
absence, with anxiety, which cost me far more than the refreshment of
change could replace; but I was led to go to see the Dean by one of
those strange presentiments for which I have never been able to account.
It was my last sight of this dear friend, with whom I have been more
really intimate than with perhaps any one else, in spite of the great
difference of age and position. Dean Alford died in the following
winter, but it was at a time when, in my own intense desolation, all
minor sorrows fell dumb and dead. But his grave, in St. Martin's
Churchyard at Canterbury, is always a very sacred spot to me.
[Illustration: ST. MARTIN'S, CANTERBURY.]
[Illustration: Henry Alford