Less than two years after this visit, on April 23, 1850, the deathday of
Shakespeare and Cervantes, Arnold's youngest daughter, now Miss Arnold
of Fox How, was walking with her sister Susan on the side of Loughrigg
which overlooks Rydal Mount. They knew that the last hour of a great
poet was near--to my aunts, not only a great poet, but the familiar
friend of their dead father and all their kindred. They moved through
the April day, along the mountainside, under the shadow of death; and,
suddenly, as they looked at the old house opposite, unseen hands drew
down the blinds; and by the darkened windows they knew that the life of
Wordsworth had gone out.

Henceforward, in the family letters to my father, it is Mrs. Wordsworth
who comes into the foreground. The old age prophesied for her by her
poet bridegroom in the early Grasmere days was about her for the nine
years of her widowhood, "lovely as a Lapland night"; or rather like one
of her own Rydal evenings when the sky is clear over the perfect little
lake, and the reflections of island and wood and fell go down and down,
unearthly far into the quiet depths, and Wansfell still "parleys with
the setting sun." My grandmother writes of her--of "her sweet grace and
dignity," and the little friendly acts she is always doing for this
person and that, gentle or simple, in the valley--with a tender
enthusiasm. She is "dear Mrs. Wordsworth" always, for them all. And it
is my joy that in the year 1856 or 1857 my grandmother took me to Rydal
Mount, and that I can vividly recollect sitting on a footstool at Mrs.
Wordsworth's feet. I see still the little room, with its plain
furniture, the chair beside the fire, and the old lady in it. I can
still recall the childish feeling that this was no common visit, and the
house no common house--that a presence still haunted it. Instinctively
the childish mind said to itself, "Remember!"--and I have always