This pension, which she enjoyed to the day of her death,
came to her as a surprise, and was not due to any effort of her own.
She would never have asked anything for herself: the only thing she
did ask for was that the nation should help her in raising a monument
to her husband's honour; but, as we have seen, the nation was somewhat
lukewarm on that point.
At the end of April Lady Burton recovered sufficiently to leave the
hotel, and joined her sister, Mrs. Fitzgerald. She was chiefly occupied
during the next few months in looking out for a house, and in completing
the arrangements for her husband's final resting-place. About the middle
of June the tent was finished. Sir Richard Burton's remains were
transferred from the crypt under the church to the mausoleum where they
now rest. At the funeral service Lady Burton occupied a _prie-dieu_
by the side, and to the right was Captain St. George Burton, of the
Black Watch, a cousin of Sir Richard. There was a large gathering of
representatives of both families and many friends. The widow carried
a little bunch of forget-me-nots, which she laid on the coffin. This
simple offering of love would doubtless have been far more acceptable
to the great explorer than the "wreath from Royalty" the absence of
which his latest biographer so loudly deplores.
When the ceremony was over, Lady Burton went away at once to the country
for a ten days' rest to the Convent of the Canonesses of the Holy
Sepulchre, New Hall, Chelmsford, where she had been educated, and which
had received within its walls many of the Arundells of Wardour.
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