KEW.
April 28 /[18]73.
My dear Lady Jardine I have two kind letters to thank you for, and shall soon have the Primula and the other things you are so good as to send. We shall look to the Pinguicula. The grass is a very nice one -- tell Sir William that it is Sesleria coerulea. I should much like a good tuft of it for the garden if you could conveniently send it. G. Henslow*1 is a trifle better in some respects, but the p[sic] paralysis is still total of the lower extremities. Thanks too for giving the Gardener the 20/--. Shall I send you a P.O. order where you are, and if so, on what P.O.? I was about to write to you about Lady Lyell's*2 death, which shocked us greatly. I heard of her alarming illness and death on Friday morning and went to Harley Street where I met Leonard at the door, and he took me up to Mrs Lyell in the drawing room who told me all about it. Lady Lyell had not been well on leaving home for Ludlow and never got better, getting daily weaker though taking abundant food and enjoying it, and suffering no pain. When alarmed they brought her to London, where, their house not being ready, she stopped at the Great Western Hotel, where she sank and in ten days died. The day before she died she never opened her eyes, and lay quite still. On the following morning, at breakfast time, Mrs

Lyell went in to take her a jelly and saw a change, and Lyell went in just in time to kiss her hand and hear her call out Charles, Charles, as she died. Mrs Lyell took me to see her in the coffin, in the back drawing room -- such a tiny little coffin, strewed with flowers, and she so calm and beautiful, without a trace of suffering, pain or discomposure. I had known the face so long, from its first loveliness, almost 40 years ago, that I was not sorry to be assured that it bore no trace of suffering at the last. Mrs Lyell told me that Sir Charles was alternately grievously afflicted and busy with his new Edition of the "Antiquity of Man" with Miss Buckley. It was thought better that I should not see him just yet. He will live with the Lyells, but whether where they are, or in Harley Street, or in a new house, I do not know -- his desolation must be extreme. They hope that your father will bury her, at Woking beside Mr Horner. This is all I know and I thought you would be glad to hear all about it that I knew. Frances *3 came back on Friday from Down -- not much better. Harriette*4 is at Chester with her Great aunt, the Bishop's wife. She returns soon and I hope brings a cousin with her. Willy*5 perseveres with his fiddle and turning. Charlie*6 has spent his holiday with Barnards at Cheltenham. With united affectionate regards, and to Sir William, Ever yours affectly[sic], | J.D.Hooker.