ng: MISS MACNAUGHTAN'S LAST LETTERS]

1, NORFOLK STREET,
PARK LANE, W.
_Tuesday._

MY DEAREST OLD POOT,

How good of you to write. I was awfully pleased to see a letter from
you. I have been a fearful crock since I got home, and I have to lie in
bed for six weeks and live on milk diet for eight weeks. The illness is
of a tropical nature, and one of the symptoms is that one can't eat, so
one gets fearfully thin. I am something over six stone now, but I was
very much less.

We were right up on the Persian front, and I went on to Tehran. One saw
some most interesting phases of the war, and met all the distinguished
Generals and such-like people.

The notice you sent me of my little book is charming.

Your loving
S. B .M.

* * * * *

1, NORFOLK STREET,
PARK LANE, W.,
_9 June._

DARLING POOT,

I must thank you myself for the lovely flowers and your kind letters. I
am sure that people's good wishes and prayers do one good. I so nearly
died!

Your loving
S. M.

* * * * *

_17th June_

Still getting on pretty well, but it is slow work. Baby and Julia both
in town, so they are constantly here. I am to get up for a little bit
to-morrow.

Kindest love. It _was_ naughty of you to send more flowers.

As ever fondly,
SARAH.

* * * * *

As the hot weather advanced it was hoped to move Miss Macnaughtan to the
country. Her friends showered invitations on "dear Sally" to come and
convalesce with them, but the plans fell through. It became increasingly
clear that the traveller was about to embark on that last journey from
which there is no return, and, indeed, towards the end her sufferings
were so great that those who loved her best could only pray that she
might not have long to wait. She passed away in the afternoon of Monday,
July 24th, 1916.

A few days later the body of Sarah Broom Macnaughtan was laid to rest in
the plot of ground reserved for her kinsfolk in the churchyard at Chart
Sutton, in Kent. It is very quiet there up on the hill, the great Weald
stretches away to the south, and fruit-trees surround the Hallowed Acre.
But even as they laid earth to earth and dust to dust in this peaceful
spot the booming of the guns in Flanders broke the quiet of the sunny
afternoon, and reminded the little funeral party that they were indeed
burying one whose life had been sacrificed in the Great War.

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