Page:Biographical catalogue of the portraits at Weston, the seat of the Earl of Bradford (IA gri 33125003402027).pdf/32

 after his accession to the title, at the early age of thirty-one, Wriothesley, the second Duke of Bedford, fell a victim to the terrible disease, which in those days (before inoculation or vaccination was known) wrought such ravages in England. When the character of the illness was announced, the Duchess and his children were sent to a distance, but the fond mother watched by his bedside to the last, and writes, after all is over, to her cousin Lord Galway: 'I am in such disorder of spirits, so full of confusion, and amazement, that I am incapable of saying or doing what I should. I did not know the greatness of my love for his person, till I could see it no more.' The poor mourner had scarcely time to lift her head, bowed by the combined weight of age and sorrow, before another crushing blow fell on her. Her sweet Katey (now Duchess of Rutland) died in giving birth to her tenth child, at the same moment that the Duchess of Devonshire was expecting her confinement. From her Lady Russell had the arduous task of concealing the fact of the other's death. The two sisters had loved each other tenderly, and there was great difficulty in evading the inquiries which the Duchess constantly made after her dear Katey. 'I saw her yesterday,' was the sad subterfuge, 'out of her bed.' Alas! it was in her coffin.

The Duke of Rutland was not slow in providing himself with a second wife, and this unseemly haste was not calculated to soothe Lady Russell's mind, but when she found that his intentions with regard to her daughter's children were just and generous, she thought it advisable 'to let the matter pass easily.' She had now arrived at an advanced age, somewhat infirm in body, but unimpaired in mind, with a trembling hand, but an unclouded intellect, and she busied herself in composing prayers and meditations for her own use, and in making, as it were, a full confession of her failings and shortcomings (which she called sins); reviewing as she did so the