LADY JOHN RUSSELL
Chenies, where his first wife, his son, his daughter-in-law, and his granddaughter were already laid.
Lady Russell survived her husband for twenty years, but the "golden joys of perfect companionship which made the hours fly" when they were together were over. Yet in the children who remained to her she found consolation, and in the care of her grandchildren she had the occupation and interests that exactly suited her. The Queen permitted her to remain at Pembroke Lodge, the home that had seen her joys and sorrows and hopes, the chances and changes of her life, and that was bound up with innumerable memories, so that she was still able to look after the school at Petersham. Some verses written in February 1879, on the occasion of her stepdaughter Georgiana's[1] birthday, from which I may quote a few lines, sufficiently indicate the state of her mind:
"Hushed now is the music! and hushed be my weeping
For days that return not and light that hath fled.
No more from their rest may I summon the sleeping,
Or linger to gaze on the years that are dead.
Fadeth my dream—and my day is declining,
But love lifts the gloamin' and smooths the rough way."
Many visits were paid at this time to her son Rollo, who had bought a house near Hindhead,
- ↑ Lady Georgiana Peel.
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