was very different in the two cases. If my
mother had died a dozen years earlier I should have felt the loss as
the end of all things to me--as leaving me desolate and causing a void
which nothing could ever fill. But when she died at eighty-three she
had lived her life, upon the whole a very happy one, to the happiness
of which I had (and have) the satisfaction of believing I largely
contributed.

It is very common for a mother and daughter to live during many years
of life together in as close companionship as I lived with my mother,
but it is not common for a son to do so. During many years, and many,
many journeyings, and more _tete-a-tete_ walks, and yet more of
_tete-a-tete_ home hours, we were inseparable companions and friends.
I can truly say that, from the time when we put our horses together on
my return from Birmingham to the time of my marriage, she was all in
all to me! During some four or five days in the early time of our
residence at Florence I thought I was going to lose her, and I can
never forget the blank wretchedness of the prospect that seemed to be
before me.

She had a very serious illness, and was, as I had subsequently
reason to believe, very mistakenly treated. She was attended by a
practitioner of the old school, who had at that time the leading
practice in Florence. He was a very good fellow, and an admirable
whist player; and I do not think the members of our little colony
drew a sufficiently sharp line of division between his social and his
professional qualifications. He was, as I have said, essentially a man
of the (even then) old school, and retained the old-fashioned general
practitioners phraseology. I remember his once mortally disgusting an
unhappy dyspeptic old lady by asking her, "Do we go to our dinner with
glee?" As if the poor soul had ever done anything with glee!

This gentleman had bled my mother, and had appointed another bleeding
for the evening. I believe she would assuredly have died if that had
been done, and I attribute to Lord Holland the saving of her. Her
doctor had very wrongly resisted the calling in of other English
advice, professional jealousy, and indeed enmity, running high just
then among us. Lord Holland came to the house just in the nick of
time; and over-ruling authoritatively all the difficulties raised by
the Esculapius in possession of the field, insisted on at once sending
his own medical attendant. The result was the immediate administration
of