Toward the close of the last summer preceding his decease, a season
which had been made particularly irksome to him by the prolonged
visitation of Mrs Heneage and her family, my old friend was left once
more to the quiet society of his sister, and to her gentle tending,
through one of his constitutional attacks, the effects of which still
lingered about him, when the health of his kind nurse began to droop,
and a fearful change in her appearance was manifest to all those who
were not blinded to it by habits of hourly intercourse, and her
uncomplaining serenity. Her own maid, however, the faithful Celia, was
but too competent to perceive the alteration in her lady, and to surmise
its cause; for she was aware, though enjoined to strict secresy, that
for some time past, on the first indication of any gouty symptoms, Mrs
Eleanor had had recourse to powerful repellants, counting as little her
own personal risk, in comparison with the dread necessity of leaving her
brother companionless in the midst of his intrusive guests, or alone on
the bed of sickness, as might have been the case had her own malady been
allowed to take its progress unchecked at the first indications, which
were of a more than heretofore threatening nature. The antidote had been
but too efficacious, and when Mrs Eleanor was at length induced by the
entreaties of her faithful servant, and her own internal sensations, to
speak privately to her medical attendant (an attached friend of the
family), he saw so much cause for serious alarm, that it was with
difficulty she prevailed on him to withhold for a few days only from her
brother the shock of a communication, which she undoubtedly flattered
herself might yet be rendered unnecessary by her amendment.

And for a day or two she appeared to rally, and there was a visible
improvement in her, to my observation and that of Mrs L----, when we
stopt at the Hall in our evening drive, and drank tea with her and Mr
Devereux, on the last of those few days.

We had hardly done breakfast the following morning, when our medical
friend (the attendant of the Devereuxs) sent in a request to speak to me
in my library.

It was to announce to me the removal of our dear friend from earth to
heaven. She had been found that morning in her bed asleep in death.

It needs not to say how promptly I betook myself to the house of
mourning--how earnestly I pressed for admittance to the forlorn
survivor, who had locked himself into h