in the world to be useful, is really too delicate to do or bear much.
She too, at present, has frequent pains in the side. Papa is also
pretty well, though Emily's state renders him very anxious.

* * * * *

_[Tuesday.]_

I should have written to you before, if I had had one word of hope to
say; but I have not. She grows daily weaker. The physician's opinion
was expressed too obscurely to be of use. He sent some medicine, which
she would not take. Moments so dark as these I have never known. I
pray for God's support to us all. Hitherto He has granted it.

* * * * *

21 _Dec_. 1848.

Emily suffers no more from pain or weakness now. She never will suffer
more in this world. She is gone, after a hard, short conflict. She
died on _Tuesday_, the very day I wrote to you. I thought it very
possible she might be with us still for weeks; and a few hours
afterwards, she was in eternity. Yes; there is no Emily in time or
on earth now. Yesterday we put her poor, wasted, mortal frame quietly
under the church pavement. We are very calm at present. Why should we
be otherwise? The anguish of seeing her suffer is over; the spectacle
of the pains of death is gone by; the funeral day is past. We feel she
is at peace. No need now to tremble for the hard frost and the keen
wind. Emily does not feel them. She died in a time of promise. We saw
her taken from life in its prime. But it is God's will, and the place
where she is gone is better than that she has left.

God has sustained me, in a way that I marvel at, through such agony
as I had not conceived. I now look at Anne, and wish she were well and
strong; but she is neither; nor is papa. Could you now come to us for
a few days? I would not ask you to stay long. Write and tell me if you
could come next week, and by what train. I would try to send a gig for
you to Keighley. You will, I trust, find us tranquil. Try to come. I
never so much needed the consolation of a friend's presence. Pleasure,
of course, there would be none for you in the visit, except what your
kind heart would teach you to find in doing good to others.

To MR. G. SMITH

_Thackeray and 'Esmond'_

14 _Feb_. 1852.

MY DEAR SIR,

It has been a great delight to me to read Mr. Thackeray's work; and
I so seldom now express my sense of kindness that, for once, you must
permit me, without rebuke, to thank you for a pleasure so rare and
special. Yet