was always an occasion of deep interest and feeling, as well as of pleasure, to Mrs. Schimmel Penninck, when Dr. Booth brought her sister to spend the day with her at Clifton. The comfort of having these relations so near ceased on their removal to their estate in Yorkshire, in 1849.

I have already had occasion to mention Mrs. Schimmel Penninck's unfailing industry. In the happy and peaceful routine which marked the latter years of her life, this was brought into full exercise.

A marked characteristic of her house was the cheerfulness of her simple meals. She generally, I believe designedly, conversed much at such times; and when not actually oppressed by illness or suffering, she exerted herself to make the assembling together of her family, whether small or large, bright and pleasant.

It is true, as a friend once remarked, she sometimes gave so much food for the mind, that she forgot the needful refreshment of the body; but, nevertheless, these were times of peculiar enjoyment.

It was her habit to read most of the publications of the day-that is to say, when her eyes needed rest, they were read aloud; and this was to her a sort of mental necessity. She had always two or three books, of different kinds, on hand. Many were the pauses, in which the subject presented was discussed, compared, and illustrated from the stores of her own mind,

upon

or her ready pencil, or whatever else could throw light it. She was never more genial, nor more happy, than in the entire privacy of evenings thus spent, and it was then that her mental and moral gifts were seen in fullest perfection. She had the keenest appreciation of humour, and great drollery; nothing escaped her playful fancy. One who loved her well often told her that her "merry heart was a continual feast." If in youth her wit might ever have led to satire, though I know not that it did, I will venture to say that no word even approximating to satire was heard from her lips in later life. Were any thing said in her presence which bore unkindly on the absent, she always took their part, and sought to excuse the person, even if she could not but condemn the fault. Nor were her fingers idle in these delightful evenings; she became an excellent knitter, and many were the coverlids and petticoats she made for her friends. In the morning she generally pursued some study. She was fond of arranging the heads of any subject that interested her in a chartular 'form; and at one period of her life she gave a good deal of time to the formation of such charts. Those she made on Gothic architecture; on the sources and consequent value of the Catholic and Protestant versions of the Holy Scriptures; and on the authority by which the Apocrypha has been received by one party into the canon of Scripture, and refused by another, are

especially valuable and interesting. Drawing plans and maps to illustrate particular places was another of her favourite occupations while listening to reading; and so carefully had she studied the geography of the Holy Land, and so many were the plans and charts on different scales she had drawn of Jerusalem and the Temple, that it has been said, the roses of Damascus, the walls of Jerusalem, and the courts of the Temple were as familiar to her as the gardens and the city near which she dwelt.

CHAP. XII.

1848-1850.

"A renewed nature is the very image of God, it is a beam from the face of God. The only inherent beauty of the rational soul; it ennobles man above all nobility, fits him to understand his Maker's pleasure, do His will, and receive His glory."

BAXTER.

MILTON.

In the year 1848, Mrs. Schimmel Penninck's powers of walking, so necessary for the preservation of her health, began to fail; and two friends, to whom she was very dear, persuaded her to keep a little carriage. They thought that the inducement which a suitable conveyance afforded to be more in the air, could hardly fail to be useful; while the variety it would give, they also hoped, might, in a degree, refresh her mind, and divert it from its too close habits of study. The use of the carriage proved highly beneficial to her. It was respecting this that she wrote:

"June 17th.

"Since my last letter to you, I have got my little carriage. It is very neat and commodious, and in 'la pauvreté évangélique.' The only fault I have to find is, that the horse seems too desirous of exercising the right of private judgment as to which road he shall take, and where he shall have his pasture, whenever he sees a new road, or a bit of green grass by the wayside. I hope, however, he will soon be taught to abjure les nouveautés,' and then, I think, he will do very well."

But these happy days were often clouded by illness; if that can justly be called a cloud which was lighted up by Divine consolations. She never lost the lesson she had learnt in childhood from her mother to bear pain-shall I say like a Spartan, or a Christian? Certain it is, that to those who knew her sensitive constitution, it was marvellous to see how she endured bodily suffering: great prostration of strength was, perhaps, harder to bear, and both were familiar to her. The word of God was her stay at such times. She would, perhaps, have the 34th Psalm, or the 103rd, or the 121st, or the last verses of the 5th of Ephesians, read over and over again to her. She listened with sustained delight to those passages which declare the close