brightness when anything pleased her in a letter or review. But finally
there came long hours when to think or speak of it seemed sacrilege. And
on April 7th she died.

* * * * *

The day after her death I saw Mr. Gladstone at Keble. We talked for a
couple of hours, and then when I rose to go he asked if I would come
again on the following morning before he went back to town. I had been
deeply interested and touched, and I went again for another long visit.
My account, written down at the time, of the first day's talk, has been
printed as an appendix to the Library Edition of the book. Of the second
conversation, which was the more interesting of the two since we came to
much closer quarters in it, my only record is the following letter to
my husband:

I have certainly had a wonderful experience last night and this
morning! Last night two hours' talk with Gladstone, this morning,
again an hour and a half's strenuous argument, during which the
great man got quite white sometimes and tremulous with interest and
excitement.... The talk this morning was a battle royal over the
book and Christian evidences. He was _very_ charming personally,
though at times he looked stern and angry and white to a degree, so
that I wondered sometimes how I had the courage to go on--the drawn
brows were so formidable! There was one moment when he talked of
"trumpery objections," in his most House of Commons manner. It was
as I thought. The new lines of criticism are not familiar to him,
and they really press him hard. He meets them out of Bishop Butler,
and things analogous. But there is a sense, I think, that question
and answer don't fit, and with it ever-increasing interest