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dral there was no cessation in their friendship, and it was always a pleasure to Mrs. McDougall to be present at his meetings for prayer and the exposition of the Scriptures, which reminded her of her early youth and many friends long parted from her.

In a letter to her sister she describes the first of these meetings to which she was taken when staying with Mr. and Mrs. Carus at Bournemouth. After eulogising her host she says: 'Mab and I went to a Bible-reading on Friday afternoon. About sixty ladies and gentlemen filled a drawing-room belonging to a cousin of Mr. John Abel Smith of Watton. Mr. Carus read a chapter in the Acts, after a hymn and an extempore prayer by himself; then, having expounded the passage, he invited remarks, and several long-bearded military men made irrelevant observations; also another clergyman. Then one man began about spiritualism—was it demoniacal ? But Mr. Carus snuffed that out speedily. They were all so kind and affectionate! Afterwards we had tea and coffee full of milk and sugar. Well I liked it. It was something quite new, and yet scented with a bygone fragrance.'

This narrative would scarcely be complete without some reference to the Bishop and Mrs. McDougall's care of the widow and children of one of his former missionaries. The Rev. W. F. Abé, a German, who had been ordained by him in Borneo, and done much faithful service in one of the Dyak missions, and whose name constantly occurs in their letters, as coming up to the mission house with his family for medical help and refreshment, after the Bishop's retirement from the East, threw up his mission, and went to Australia, where he obtained employment, and after some years died. In 1877, his widow, left almost destitute, determined to come to England with her four surviving children to appeal to the Society and the Bishop, and the appeal was not rejected. On receiving her letter, Mrs. McDougall and her eldest daughter at once set off to them, and found them in a remote London

suburb in a room which they had taken unfurnished, and containing little more than their sea chests, and truly consoling was her appearance to them. The Bishop exerted himself on their behalf, and a fund was raised for them to which some of his friends in the West of England were liberal contributors, and small pensions were allowed by the Society. When Mrs. Abé died, after some months, the two younger children were taken charge of by their relatives in Germany, but the two elder boys, by the Bishop, who became in fact their guardian, and the dispenser of the fund. They were sent to St. Chad's College, near Uttoxeter, whence the younger obtained an appointment in the Sarawak navy through the influence of the Bishop, which, unhappily, he did not retain; but the elder was more successful. He went to Durham and obtained a scholarship, was ordained, and eventually settled in Australia. In so doing he rather disappointed his guardian, who had hoped that he would have taken up his father's work in Sarawak. While in England they seem to have behaved well, and were so far a pleasure to their protectors, to whom they not unusually came for their holidays, but it was a somewhat serious duty that was undertaken on their behalf.

In the summer of 1885 he resigned the vicarage of Milford and accepted that of Shorwell, with the rectory of Mottistone, in the Isle of Wight. The united parish, although with a more scattered population, was smaller and much more manageable than Milford, and had the primary attraction of being in his own archdeaconry. It was also somewhat more valuable, and when it was offered to him in handsome terms by the governing body of Hertford College, Oxford, in whom the patronage was vested, and who in 1884 had elected him to an honorary fellowship, he determined to accept it, although with many searchings of heart, and much hesitation at venturing upon another charge.

FINAL CHAPTER.

1885-1886.

THE village of Shorwell, although more than a mile from the sea, of which it has but a distant view, is one of the prettiest in the island. The traveller, arriving at the top of an almost precipitous hill, looks down upon it through the high embanked road overarched with foliage. The house and park of North Court on the one side, and the church and village on the other, harmonise well together, and immediately behind the church stands the vicarage, with its gardens sloping down towards the school and farmhouses beyond. In August 1885 the Bishop and Mrs. McDougall paid it a visit of inspection which she describes, as well as their motives for moving, in the following letter written to Mrs. Colenso:

'3 The Close, Winchester: Aug. 11, 1885. 'Frank began residence May 28, so we stay naturally to the end of August to finish our ninety days' residence; but I think that this year we shall probably stay later still, for we are going to move from Milford to Shorwell and Mottistone, a parish in the Isle of Wight not far from Freshwater, and we must get in there by Michaelmas, which will make it impossible to settle again at all at Milford. The uncertainties, doubts, and anxieties about accepting this living, and moving again at our age, have filled our minds for the last two months, but I think that it is all right. Frank is so often wanted in the island for archdeacon's work, that it will save him many a tiresome trip to live amongst the clergy there. It is a very retired spot.

Shorwell is very pretty, but little. The garden is all up and down, the church not a stone's throw from the vicarage. A tiny conservatory peeps in at one of the drawing-room windows. The rooms are all compact, not straggling like this house, or even as large as Milford. However, I dare say that I shall be happy there if Frank is pretty well and my darlings happy also. The people at Shorwell and Mottistonefor there are two churches, one at either end of the parish— welcomed us most kindly last week when we went over for three days.' There were in fact two parishes-Shorwell, a vicarage and the principal cure-Mottistone, a very small place, but a rectory, and always held with the former. In Shorwell he was very fortunate in having for his curate the Rev. Charles H. Badgelly, who has since become a beneficed clergyman in the county of Hereford. For the services at Mottistone a separate arrangement had to be made.

In paying this visit she probably thought that it was her first to the place, but on settling down she found that it was not so. In 1835, when quite a girl, she had accompanied her father and elder sister round the island, and had illustrated the tour in a book of pencil sketches, of which the last was an elaborate drawing of the church, vicarage, and churchyard of Shorwell. She did not remember taking it, but there it was, the window of the room in which she afterwards died, and the tower overshadowing the corner of the churchyard in which she now sleeps her last sleep. In this there may be nothing worth observation, but it was one of those curious coincidences, which, without any real significance, strike the imagination, and are repeated almost involuntarily.

It must be admitted that this move was not a success. The climate of Shorwell did not suit them so well as that of Milford. It is true that during the four years that they had been at the latter place their diaries and letters contained constant entries of illness, especially on his part, but they were manfully struggled against and an entry in her pocket

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book on the last Sunday of 1884 was characteristic of them all: 'Frank ill, but preached nevertheless.' Towards the end of his life he was well aware of the risk of such exertions, and told a clerical friend that, from what he knew of the condition of his heart, he thought it probable that he might die in the pulpit, but that he felt it his duty to preach. To any member of his own family he never breathed a word of such an apprehension. He always, however, felt better as the summer advanced, and when he accepted Shorwell in the brighter season of the year, must have over-estimated his strength. The event was, that he had no sooner settled into his new residence than he became seriously ill, although not wholly laid aside or losing his interest in public affairs. On November 2 he wrote to his brother-in-law:

'Many thanks for the copy of the Act. I had the clergy up to Newport on Friday, and we elected the Rector of Brighstone, Mr. Heygate, commissioner. Then we had a long discussion on Church Defence, and I have been urged to call together a public meeting of laymen, and a gathering of churchwardens of the island, to take counsel concerning measures of Church Defence. I will not call a meeting of the laity generally, as I fear that it would at once give a vent to the political excitement which is afloat, and might alienate rather than win over Liberals, and do no good to the Conservatives. A churchwarden meeting is another affair, if they can be got together, which I doubt, as I have had my official visitation this year, and cannot well summon them formally again.

'I am still very shaky and unfit for anything, feeling inclined to lie down and see nobody. I try to resist it, but it is very hard. Harry is fairly well, and the girls also. I shall be very glad when you are free to come over with Frances to have a look at us. The weather is very dull, and things look

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