Second Widowhood. 327 



I had seen you both, as I often thought, the most beauti- 

 ful instance of united old age. His love and pride in you, 

 breaking out as it did at every instant when you happened 

 to be absent, gives me the measure of what his loss must 

 be to your warm heart." 



The following letter from my mother, dated April, 

 1861, addressed to her sister-in-law, was written after 

 reading my grandfather's " Life and Times," the publi- 

 cation of which my father did not live to see. 



FROM MRS. SOMERVILLE TO MRS. ELLIOT, OF ROSEBANK, 

 ROXBURGHSHIRE. 



FLORENCE, 28th April, 1861. 



MY DEAR JANET, 



I received the precious volume* you have so 

 kindly sent to me some days ago, but I have delayed 

 thanking you for it till now because we all wished to 

 read it first. "We are highly pleased, and have been 

 deeply interested in it. The whole tone of the book 

 is characteristic of your dear father; the benevolence, 

 warm-heartedness, and Christian charity which appeared 

 in the whole course of his life and ministry. That 

 which has struck us all most forcibly is the liberality of 

 his sentiments, both religious and political, at a time 

 when narrow views and bigotry made it even dangerous 

 to avow them, and it required no small courage to do so. 

 He was far in advance of the age in which he lived ; 



* The Rev. P. Somerville's "Life and Times." 



