vii THE DEAN'S ILLNESS 89 



Whittington and his Cat was a standing piece. It was a charming 

 picture to see Stanley, after some ofificial engagement, with his 

 white hair contrasting with the red riband of the Bath (the Dean 

 of Westminster being Chaplain to the Order), the youngest child 

 raised on his knee, whilst he looked on with extraordinary zest 

 at the acting. Indeed, he took such interest as even him- 

 self to compose some lines for the children to add to the little 

 play. But this delightful friendship drew to its close in 1881. 

 On the 27 th June of that year he baptized our youngest child, 

 giving her the name of his dear wife, " Augusta," and of her sister. 

 Lady Frances Baillie, and cousin, Mrs. Drummond of Megginch, 

 ■also Frances. He came to lunch afterwards, cheerful and keenly 

 interested as usual, to the delight of Professor Asa Gray, the 

 accomplished American botanist, then visiting in Europe. It 

 was about the time of the publication of Froude's full and some- 

 what rough Life of Carlyle, when many readers were painfully 

 distressed by the revelations of temper and apparent discomfort 

 of his domestic life, but the Dean was very comforting in stating 

 that these " revelations " were overdrawn, and said that " words 

 which in print appeared cruel and even savage were in reality so 

 softened by the manner of saying them, or the smile that accom- 

 panied them, that Carlyle's admirers need not be troubled about 

 his reputation." 



This was the last general conversation enjoyed 

 with the Dean, for he was taken ill a few days after- 

 wards. He was attacked by erysipelas in the head, 

 and on the i8th of July Arthur Penrhyn Stanley 

 passed to his rest in the Westminster Deanery, 

 Sunday the 17th will never be forgotten by those 

 who attended the evening service in the nave of 

 Westminster Abbey, when the bulletins pasted on 

 the walls of the cloisters announced that the erst- 

 while principal figure of those services was lying 

 in the adjacent Deanery stricken with mortal illness. 



