elled (which I know well) is holy ground to me from this day; and
that please Heaven I will tread its every foot this very next summer,
to have the softened recollection of this sad story on the very earth
where it was acted.

"You won't smile at this, I know. When my enthusiasms are awakened by
such things they don't wear out.

"Have you ever thought within yourself of that part where, having
suffered so much by the news of his death, she _will not_ believe he
is alive? I should have supposed that unnatural if I had seen it in
fiction.

"I shall never dismiss the subject from my mind, but with these hasty
and very imperfect words I shall dismiss it from my paper, with two
additional remarks--firstly, that Kate has been grievously putting
me out by sobbing over it, while I have been writing this, and has
just retired in an agony of grief; and, secondly, that _if_ a time
_should_ ever come when you would not object to letting a friend copy
it for himself, I hope you will bear me in your thoughts.

"It seems the poorest nonsense in the world to turn to anything else,
that is, seems to me being fresher in respect of Lady De Lancey than
you--but my raven's dead. He had been ailing for a few days but not
seriously, as we thought, and was apparently recovering, when symptoms
of relapse occasioned me to send for an eminent medical gentleman one
Herring (a bird fancier in the New Road), who promptly attended and
administered a powerful dose of castor oil. This was on Tuesday last.
On Wednesday morning he had another dose of castor oil and a tea cup
full of warm gruel, which he took with great relish and under the
influence of which he so far recovered his spirits as to be enabled to
bite the groom severely. At 12 o'clock at noon he took several turns
up and down the stable with a grave, sedate air, and suddenly reeled.
This made him thoughtful. He stopped directly, shook his head, moved
on again, stopped once more, cried in a tone of remonstrance and
considerable surprise, 'Halloa old girl!' and immediately died.

"He has left a rather large property (in cheese and halfpence) buried,
for security's sake, in various parts of the garden. I am not without
suspicions of poison. A butcher was heard to threaten him some weeks
since, and he stole a clasp knife belonging to a vindictive carpenter,
which was never found. For these reasons, I directed a post-mortem
examination, preparatory to the body being stuffed; the result of it