Page:Blanchard on L. E. L.pdf/150

150 with which she always parried every fact connected with going to Africa, did not show itself. She was full of the future—of her own, and ours. She liked Mr. Hugh Maclean, and gave him much playful advice, and myself a hundred cautions. She dwelt frequently on the great solace which the execution of her literary plans would be to her, and felt pride and pleasure at the prospects of her continued connection with this country; she said, how deeply shall I value praise when I am away! Her literature was to be her refuge in solitude. 'What will you do without friends to talk to?' 'Oh!' she said, 'I shall talk to them through my books.' The present, as it concerned herself, seemed to have but little place in her mind—she was all future.

"Her note writing was resumed immediately after breakfast, and this, with a little talk between perhaps every note, occupied the whole of her last morning in England. Let me here say a word of explanation on this point, which I would gladly have meet the eye of her friends. These notes were confided to me, and most of them were to be accompanied by some little memorial, a book, a portrait, one of Schloss's almanacks, or some other trifling token from her, a list of which she intended to furnish me with, but which, in the hurry of departure, she had not time to complete. I found but a very few names on the unfinished list, and was at a sad loss what to send with the notes; and I am grateful to those who did her the honour to inquire after what she named in any of them.

"The morning passed in anxious uncertainty at what hour the vessel was to sail, and it was not till the afternoon that the summons came. We were to dine on board the brig. I remember, while