Lord". She held this in practice, even more than in theory; you saw
her chastened yet hopeful spirit beaming forth from her gentle eyes,
and her sweet smile can never be forgotten. The last time we saw her,
was about two years ago--in Bristol--at her brother's, Dr. Porter's,
house in Portland Square: then she could hardly stand without
assistance, yet she never complained of her own suffering or
feebleness, all her anxiety was about the brother--then dangerously
ill, and now the last of "his race." Major Porter, it will be
remembered, left five children, and these have left only one
descendant--the daughter of Sir Robert Ker Porter and the Russian
Princess whom he married, a young Russian lady, whose present name we
do not even know.

We did not think at our last leave-taking that Miss Porter's fragile
frame could have so long withstood the Power that takes away all we
hold most dear; but her spirit was at length summoned, after a few
days' total insensibility, on the 24th of May.

We were haunted by the idea that the pretty cottage at Esher, where
we spent those happy hours, had been treated even as "Mrs. Porter's
Arcadia" at Thames Ditton--now altogether removed; and it was with a
melancholy pleasure we found it the other morning in nothing changed;
and it was almost impossible to believe that so many years had passed
since our last visit. While Mr. Fairholt was sketching the cottage, we
knocked at the door, and were kindly permitted by two gentle sisters,
who now inhabit it, to enter the little drawing-room and walk round
the garden: except that the drawing-room has been re-papered and
painted, and that there were no drawings and no flowers the room was
not in the least altered; yet to us it seemed like a sepulcher, and we
rejoiced to breathe the sweet air of the little garden, and listen to