about it. All send love to
everybody.--Believe me to be your affectionate sister, F. H. L. G.

Whilst the parents were in London this year, Bessie paid one visit which
produced a great and lasting effect upon her. She accompanied her mother
to the blind school in the Avenue Road; and this seems to have been the
first time that the blind, as a class of the community, apart from the
majority, and separated by a great loss and privation, came under her
notice. The experience could not fail to be painful. She contrasted the
lot of these young people with her own in her happy home, and shrank
back in pain from institutions in which the afflicted are herded
together, the one common bond that of the fetters of a hopeless fate.
The matron of the girls' school, afterwards Mrs. Levy, remembers this
visit, and says the impression produced on her by the bishop's daughter
was that she was "delightful, beautiful, full of sympathy for the
blind." She remembers also that the Bishop preached in Marylebone Church
in aid of the blind school, taking as his text words that must often
have comforted and strengthened his own heart, "Who hath made the blind
and deaf, but I the Lord?"

This year, 1842, was altogether a memorable one. Bessie's grandfather,
as a young man, had a living or curacy at Acton, where his chief friend,
the squire of the parish, was a Mr. Wegg. Another friend of whom he saw
much at this time was Mr. Bathurst, afterwards General Sir James
Bathurst, aide-de-camp to the Duke of Wellington. A third was Miss
Hales, companion and friend of Mrs. Wegg. The Gilberts and the Bathursts
were Miss Hales's dearest friends; and she had a god-daughter in each
family, they were Catherine, younger daughter of Sir James Bathurst, and
Bessie, the blind grand-daughter of Mr. Wintle. Mrs. Gilbert always
corresponded with Miss Hales, sent her copies of Bessie's verses, and
information as to the health and progress of the child. Miss Hales died
in 1842, and by will divided her fortune between her two god-daughters.

Bessie was thus placed in a different position from that of any of her
sisters; she alone when she attained her majority would have an
independent income during her father's lifetime. The Bishop was relieved
from anxiety as to the future of his blind daughter, and the necessity
of ample provision for her; but he felt strongly, and wished her also to
feel, that the possession of money brings with it duties and
responsibilit