190 



REMINISCENCES, ETC. 



anxiety and fatigue consequent upon his long illnes?, 

 obliged her to spend the winter of 1858 at Torquay. At 

 first the society of her sisters,* the change of scene, and the 

 mildness of the climate in that beautiful spot, appeared to 

 give her relief : but her spirits never rallied after the closing 

 scene at Yaenol, and happening to take fresh cold in the 

 following March, she grew rapidly worse. 



Feeling a strong desire to return to Tedworth, she was 

 moved with diflficulty from Torquay, but got no further on 

 her journey than Compton Basset, near Devizes, the resi" 

 dence of her brother-in-law, George Heneage, Esq., where she 

 expired on the 18th of May, 1859. Having had entrusted 

 to her by Mr. Smith the sole disposition of his princely 

 fortune, it became a matter of great interest and curiosity 

 to know to whom she would bequeath it. The event 

 proved that she was animated by the same strong sense of 

 justice which had been so predominant a feature in the 

 character of her husband. By her will she left the whole 

 of his Welsh, property, comprising in all 47,000 acres, exclu- 

 sive of much mountain land, and exceeding in value £40,000 

 a year,t to one of his nearest relations, whom she had never 

 seen, the son of Captain and Mrs. Duff, and grandson of 

 Mrs. Astley, Mr. Smith's sister. Having thus done her 

 duty to the family of her husband, she bequeathed the 

 Tedworth estate to her favourite nephew and godson, 

 Francis Stanley, the son of one of her sisters. To the 

 other members of her own family she left personalty and 

 legacies varying in amount, not forgetting some of Mr. 

 Smith's and her own oldest friends. Many of the old 

 family servants and retainers were left handsomely pro- 

 vided for. The Will, made, as it must have been, in the 



* Mrs. Heneage, Mrs. Sloane Stanley, and Mrs. Ker Seymer. 



t Mr. Smith stated to a friend, two years before his death, that the 

 Llanberris Slate Quarries cleared on an average, after payment of all 

 expenses, ^£30,000 per annum. The landed property produces £15,000 

 per annum. 



