She
herself was going to England by the quicker route overland.
Her work now being done, a few days later Lady Burton left Trieste for
the last time. The evening before her departure twenty of her friends
came up to spend the last hours with her. She walked round every room,
recalling her life in her happy home. She visited every nook and cranny
of the garden; she sat under the linden tree where she and her husband
had spent so many quiet hours, and she gazed at the beautiful views for
the last time. This went on till the time came for her to leave. Many
friends came to accompany her to the station. When she arrived she
found that she had to face quite a demonstration. All the leading
people in Trieste and the authorities of the city, all the children
of the orphanage in which she had taken so keen an interest, all the
poor whom she had helped, and all her private friends, who were many,
were there to bid her good-bye and offer her flowers. She says: "It
was an awful trial not to make an exhibition of myself, and I was
glad when the train steamed out; but for a whole hour, ascending the
beautiful road close to the sea and Miramar and Trieste, I never took
my misty eyes off Trieste and our home where I had been so happy for
eighteen years."
On arriving in England, Lady Burton's first care was to go and see Sir
Richard's sister and niece, Lady and Miss Stisted, and acquaint them with
the circumstances of her husband's death, and her intentions.
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