n the
capacity of midwives. Mary "had had a woman, and was doing extremely
well."

What had passed however in the night between Wednesday and Thursday, had
so far alarmed me, that I did not quit the house, and scarcely the
chamber, during the following day. But my alarms wore off, as time
advanced. Appearances were more favourable, than the exhausted state of
the patient would almost have permitted me to expect. Friday morning
therefore I devoted to a business of some urgency, which called me to
different parts of the town, and which, before dinner, I happily
completed. On my return, and during the evening, I received the most
pleasurable sensations from the promising state of the patient. I was
now perfectly satisfied that every thing was safe, and that, if she did
not take cold, or suffer from any external accident, her speedy recovery
was certain.

Saturday was a day less auspicious than Friday, but not absolutely
alarming.

Sunday, the third of September, I now regard as the day, that finally
decided on the fate of the object dearest to my heart that the universe
contained. Encouraged by what I considered as the progress of her
recovery, I accompanied a friend in the morning in several calls, one of
them as far as Kensington, and did not return till dinner-time. On my
return I found a degree of anxiety in every face, and was told that she
had had a sort of shivering fit, and had expressed some anxiety at the
length of my absence. My sister and a friend of hers, had been engaged
to dine below stairs, but a message was sent to put them off, and Mary
ordered that the cloth should not be laid, as usual, in the room
immediately under her on the first floor, but in the ground-floor
parlour. I felt a pang at having been so long and so unseasonably
absent, and determined that I would not repeat the fault.

In the evening she had a second shivering fit, the symptoms of which
were in the highest degree alarming. Every muscle of the body trembled,
the teeth chattered, and the bed shook under her. This continued
probably for five minutes. She told me, after it was over, that it had
been a struggle between life and death, and that she had been more than
once, in the course of it, at the point of expiring. I now apprehend
these to have been the symptoms of a decided mortification, occasioned
by the part of the placenta that remained in the womb. At the time
however I was far from considering it in that light. When I went for