Three generations

L'ENVOI
Miss Cyples-Bell.
My dear Annie,
To you who have been as a true daughter to
me I must address L'Envoi with which I send forth
this book. Close friend and constant helper, without
whom I could not have accomplished this solitary
memorial to a family the members of which, dear to
each other, showed traits worthy of preservation, yet
did not leave a single descendant to keep their name
alive and represent them in the future.
Believe me,
Yours very affectionately,
Henrietta Keddie.
In the seventies my sister Margaret and I went
abroad with five of our former pupils. We visited the
Low Countries, Germany, Switzerland, and France,
making a stay of three or four months. (What would
our stay-at-home grandmothers have thought of such
incorrigible gadding ?) In 1880 my sister Margaret died,
and I was stripped indeed. I left England in 1884 as I
had left Scotland in 1869, and went abroad again for a
time with a party of friends and my adopted daughter,
traversing much the same route. A cherished dream
of reaching Italy was never fulfilled. On my return I
went to Oxford to be near my friends, Professor Wal-
lace and Mrs. Wallace, and in Oxford or the neigh
bourhood I spent the next twenty years. I settled in
Oxford eventually, receiving into the family unattached
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