follower of the meek and lowly Jesus.  He indeed is our peace.”  “Another unprofitable day; but when, alas! is any day otherwise with me?” “Sins of the week:  unbelief proceeding from pride of reason, selfishness, carelessness, hardness of heart, vanity, evil speaking.”  These extracts are sufficient to show that there was a very severe introspection—­a very real shrinking from sin, and sense of unworthiness.  Some of the faults she lamented seemed to others remarkably absent in the duchess Evil speaking, for example, was about the last thing she could be accused of.  There was no one more careful of the character of those with whom she had to do.

This short diary also shows her busily occupied in attending to members of her household, ministering to one maid, who was sick, instructing another in the Shorter Catechism.  Happy was the household that had such a mistress at its head!

In 1830 William IV. came to the throne.  The Duchess of Gordon was selected by Queen Adelaide as Mistress of the Robes at the Coronation.  The Queen bestowed upon her many marks of favour and friendship.  But the promotion to the highest honours of the Court was not allowed to militate against her soul’s welfare.  The service of the King of kings was always put first.

It is needless to say that the duchess was always a regular attendant at God’s house.  For thirty years she made a practice of taking copious notes of the sermons.  The notes were copied out carefully during the week.  This note-taking—­sometimes a slight embarrassment to the preacher—­was a great help to the hearer.  As at least two sermons a week were thus noted, there must have been a great mass of manuscript before the thirty years were expired.  Amongst those whose sermons she much enjoyed were Mr. Howels of Long Acre, Mr. Harington Evans, and Mr. Blunt, of Chelsea.

Good works were promoted by the duke and duchess at the cost of much self-denial.  The duke’s predecessor had left the estates heavily burdened.  The consequence was that they were put under trust, only a limited income being allowed to the duke.  This made contributions to charitable objects less ample than they would otherwise have been.  But generous help was bestowed that cost the givers something to give.  The duchess set her heart on building and endowing a chapel in connection with the Church of England.  To render this possible the duke proposed to sell some of his horses.  For the same purpose the duchess left a golden vase valued at L1200 to be sold.  To quote her own words to explain what resulted from this charitable idea:  “The Duchess of Beaufort, hearing of my vase, thought of her diamond ear-rings, which she got me to dispose of for a chapel in Wales, and her diamonds made me think of my jewels; and as the duke had always been most anxious for the chapel, he agreed with me that stones were much prettier in a chapel wall than round one’s neck, and so he allowed me to sell L600’s worth, or rather what brought that, for they cost more than double.  The chapel is going on nicely, and I have still enough jewels left to help to endow it, if no other way should open.  I do think I may with confidence hope for a blessing on this.  It is no sacrifice to me whatever, except as it is one to the duke, who is very fond of seeing me fine, and was brought up to think it right.”