at a strangely early hour on that April morning; and her mother, in the
hushed house, took up the thread of life once more with pious submission
and the iron will for which she was remarkable.

At the date at which this book opens, many years had gone by since that
storm of sorrow had fallen upon her, suddenly, like a bolt from the blue.
All unsuspected, indeed, another grief, the death of her little son, was
approaching; but for the present contentment reigned.

[Illustration: MARIANNE]

[Illustration: MRS. SPENCER-STANHOPE AND HER FIVE DAUGHTERS]

[Illustration: ANNE]

[Illustration: ISABELLA]

[Illustration: FRANCES]

[Illustration: MARIA]

After celebrating the Christmas festivities, as usual, in Yorkshire, early
in January, 1805, she journeyed with her husband and family back to their
house in London, No. 28 Grosvenor Square, a building since much altered,
but still standing at the corner of Upper Grosvenor Street. [12] There she
was occupied introducing into society her clever eldest daughter Marianne,
aged nineteen, and preparing for the _debut_ of her second daughter, Anne;
and thence with the dawning of that year destined to be momentous in
English history, she wrote to her son John, his father's heir-
presumptive, a youth of eighteen, who had just gone to Christ Church: