Page:The Romance of Isabel, Lady Burton.djvu/791

Rh a ladder. Later she had to abandon this steep ascent, but so long as it was possible she scaled the ladder daily, and would sit on a packing-case surrounded by her beloved manuscripts for hours together.

Lady Burton was scarcely settled in Baker Street before her sister (the one next to her in age), Mrs. Smyth Pigott, of Brockley Court, Somerset, died. She had to go down to Weston-super-Mare for the funeral. When that was over she came back to Baker Street, where she remained over Christmas. She wrote to a friend of hers about this time:

"I dream always of my books and the pile of work. I am worrying on as well as I can with my miscellaneous writing. Fogs have kept us in black darkness and pea-soup thickness for five days without a lift, and with smarting eyes and compressed head I have double work at heart. I passed Christmas night in the Convent of the Holy Souls. I went in my cab—the streets were one sheet of ice—and two flambeaux on each side. In Regent's Park the fog was black and thick. We had communion and three masses at midnight. It was too lovely: in the dead silence a little before midnight you heard the shepherd's pipe, or reed, in the distance, and echo nearer and nearer, and then the soft, clear voices burst into 'Glory be to God in the Highest' and this was the refrain all through the service. I passed the time with our Lord and my darling, who had many masses said for him in London and all over England that night. I am better and have stronger nerves, and am perhaps more peaceful."