They sail up the fiords, they ride in stolkjoerres over the country, they climb mountains, they visit old churches, and they dine with the Prince of Wales on board the royal yacht Osborne.  Before landing, Mr. Gladstone addresses the crew, thanking them that “the voyage has been made pleasant and safe by their high sense of duty, constant watchfulness, and arduous exertion.”  While he admires the “rare knowledge of practical seamanship of Sir Thomas Brassey,” and thanks both him and his wife for their “genial and generous hospitality,” he does not forget the sailors, for whom he “wishes health and happiness,” and “prays that God may speed you in all you undertake.”

Lady Brassey is living a useful and noble as well as intellectual life.  In London, Sir Thomas and herself recently gave a reception to over a thousand workingmen in the South Kensington Museum.  Devoted to her family, she does not forget the best interests of her country, nor the welfare of those less fortunate than herself.  Successful in authorship, she is equally successful in good works; loved at home and honored abroad.

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Lady Brassey’s last voyage was made in the yacht she loved:  the Sunbeam.  Three or four years before, her health had received a serious shock through an attack of typhoid fever, and it was hoped that travel would restore her.  A trip was made in 1887 to Ceylon, Rangoon, North Borneo and Australia, in company with Lord Brassey, a son, and three daughters.  While in mid-ocean, on their way to Mauritius, Lady Brassey died of malarial fever, and was buried at sea, September 14, 1887.

BARONESS BURDETT-COUTTS.

[Illustration:  BARONESS BURDETT-COUTTS.]

We hear, with comparative frequency, of great gifts made by men:  George Peabody and Johns Hopkins, Ezra Cornell and Matthew Vassar, Commodore Vanderbilt and Leland Stanford.  But gifts of millions have been rare from women.  Perhaps this is because they have not, as often as men, had the control of immense wealth.

It is estimated that Baroness Burdett-Coutts has already given away from fifteen to twenty million dollars, and is constantly dispensing her fortune.  She is feeling, in her lifetime, the real joy of giving.  How many benevolent persons lose all this joy, by waiting till death before they bestow their gifts.

This remarkable woman comes from a remarkable family.  Her father, Sir Francis Burdett, was one of England’s most prominent members of Parliament.  So earnest and eloquent was he that Canning placed him “very nearly, if not quite, at the head of the orators of the day.”  His colleague from Westminster, Hobhouse, said, “Sir Francis Burdett was endowed with qualities rarely united.  A manly understanding and a tender heart gave a charm to his society such as I have never derived in any other instance from a man whose principal pursuit was politics.  He was the delight both of young and old.”