[A letter of eighteen pages would have been found along with a will, if I had (as I then daily expected) died before my brother. After the sad events of the succeeding two years, I thought it necessary to destroy both the will and the letter.] My thoughts were continually divided between my brother's library, from which I was now on the point of being severed for ever, and my own unfinished work at home endeavouring to bring by degrees all into its proper place."
Diary—(continued).
May 13th.—Lady Herschel and my nephew went to town: I was left with my brother alone, but was counting every hour till I should see them again, for I was momentarily afraid of his dying in their absence.
May 20th.****
The summer proved very hot; my brother's feeble nerves were very much affected, and there being in general much company, added to the difficulty of choosing the most airy rooms for his retirement.
July 8th.—I had a dawn of hope that my brother might regain once more a little strength, for I have a memorandum in my almanac of his walking with a firmer step than usual above three or four times the distance from the dwelling-house to the library, in order to gather and eat raspberries, in his garden, with me. But I never saw the like again.
The latter end of July I was seized by a bilious fever, and I could for several days only rise for a few hours to go to my brother about the time he was used to see me. But one day I was entirely confined to my bed, which alarmed Lady Herschel and the family on my brother's account. Miss Baldwin[1] called and found me in despair about my own confused affairs, which I never had had time to bring- ↑ A younger sister of Mrs. Beckwith, niece of Lady Herschel.
