" They lined three sides of the
room, and filled many packing-cases on the floor. To this place she
was wont to repair daily, ascending a tortuous staircase, and finally
getting into the loft by means of a ladder. Later she had to abandon
this steep ascent, but so long as it was possible she scaled the ladder
daily, and would sit on a packing-case surrounded by her beloved
manuscripts for hours together.
Lady Burton was scarcely settled in Baker Street before her sister (the
one next to her in age), Mrs. Smyth Pigott, of Brockley Court, Somerset,
died. She had to go down to Weston-super-Mare for the funeral. When
that was over she came back to Baker Street, where she remained over
Christmas. She wrote to a friend of hers about this time:
"I dream always of my books and the pile of work. I am worrying on as
well as I can with my miscellaneous writing. Fogs have kept us in black
darkness and pea-soup thickness for five days without a lift, and with
smarting eyes and compressed head I have double work at heart. I passed
Christmas night in the Convent of the Holy Souls. I went in my cab--
the streets were one sheet of ice--and two flambeaux on each side. In
Regent's Park the fog was black and thick. We had communion and three
masses at midnight. It was too lovely: in the dead silence a little
before midnight you heard the shepherd's pipe, or reed, in the distance,
and echo nearer and nearer, and then the soft, clear voices burst into
'Glory be to God in the Highest,' and this was the refrain all through
the service.
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