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They will remember, perhaps, the atmosphere of a presence into which nothing unclean, or unworthy, or ungenerous could dare to come; though everything that was natural and fair found ready welcome, and each was taken at his best. Something at least of what is sought by those who fashion for themselves the worship of the Madonna may come to us surely in closer and more wholesome fashion through lives such as this, the last example to us of—
A creature not too bright and good
For human nature's daily food,
And yet a spirit still, and bright
With something of angelic light.
I could say more, and you will remember more, of quiet daily duty done at a constant cost of strain and toil; of the determined, almost desperate, effort to leave no lives within this place outside the circle of courtesy and friendship; of the constant care and friendship towards those who, as the world speaks, were beneath her in station—the servants of the House and their families; of the eagerness of heart with which she followed the war, felt for those who suffered, sent her letters of bright sympathy to House-men at the front; worked at the head of what Oxford did for the wives and children of its soldiers. But we pass to-day behind all this. She hath done what she could, and she is at rest. We pass, as the very spirit of her
