ri's. In crossing the
Piazza San Marco, an acquaintance, who accompanied us, took us to the
Maglio, which is close by, to hear an echo. I like an echo; yet there is
something so unearthly in the aerial voice, that it never fails to raise
a superstitious chill in me, such as I have felt more than once as I
read "Ossian" while travelling among our Highland hills in my early
youth. In one of the grand passes of the Oberland, when we were in
Switzerland, we were enveloped in a mist, through which peaks were dimly
seen. We stopped to hear an echo; the response came clear and distinct
from a great distance, and I felt as if the Spirit of the Mountain had
spoken. The impression depends on accessory circumstances; for the roar
of a railway train passing over a viaduct has no such effect.

* * * * *

I lost my husband in Florence on the 26th June, 1860.... From the
preceding narrative may be seen the sympathy, affection, and confidence,
which always existed between us....

[After what has already been said of the happiness my mother enjoyed
during the long years of their married life, it may be imagined what
grief was her's at my father's death after only three days' illness.
My mother's dear friend and correspondent, Miss F.P. Cobbe, wrote to
her as follows on this occasion:--]

"I have just learned from a letter from Captain Fairfax to my
brother the great affliction which has befallen you. I cannot
express to you how it has grieved me to think that such a sorrow
should have fallen on you, and that the dear, kind old man, whose
welcome so often touched and gratified me, should have passed away
so soon after I had seen you both, as I often thought, the most
beautiful instance of united old age. His love and pride in you,
breaking out as it did at every instant when you happened to be
absent, gives me the measure of what his loss must be to your warm
heart."

* * * * *

[The following letter from my mother, dated April, 1861, addressed to
her sister-in-law, was written after reading my grandfather's "Life
and Times," the publication of which my father did not live to see.]

* * * * *

FROM MRS. SOMERVILLE TO MRS. ELLIOT, OF ROSEBANK, ROXBURGHSHIRE.

FLORENCE, _28th April, 1861_.

MY DEAR JANET,--

I received the precious volume[14] you have so kindly sent to me