Catharine and Craufurd Tait Author:Archibald Campbell Tait Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: in number, and she had set herself a task which could not be perfectly fulfilled. It must be remembered that at this time her heart was still bowed down by recen... more »t grievous mourning. I shall never forget, when we went for a few days to see my sister, Lady Sitwell, near Maidenhead, the feelings with which we together watched, from the railway embankment near the station, the setting of the last sun of 1856, with all its solemn thoughts of past joys and sorrows and coming responsibilities. Nor was the feeling very different when, a year after, standing on the Bishop's Walk at Fulham, we saw the last sun of 1857 light up the Thames and glisten among the old trees, and still recall the same sacred memories. As soon as she well could, she threw her drawing-rooms at London House open, and invited as many of the clergy to a friendly gathering as the house could hold. Good Bishop Blomfield was still living, andin full possession of all his mental faculties. I recall her admiration of his noble form, as she walked by the wheel-chair on which he was carried prostrate round the garden at Fulham; and from him and Mrs. Blomfield, and their son Frederick, who became one of my chaplains, she anxiously endeavoured to gain advice and information for the better discharge of her and my duties. Bishop Blomfield had begun these clerical gatherings at London House. She gladly caught at the idea of continuing them, and afterwards developed them on a larger scale in the gardens and spacious rooms of Fulham Palace. In no year during the whole of our time in London did she fail to receive the whole body of the London clergy as her guests. This, scarcely possible in any other diocese, could be done in that of London, where all the clergy reside within a few miles of the Episcopal House. From the first als...« less