better," answered Lady Hester. I thought she had not heard me well. "It was a lamentable end, that of Mr.———," I repeated with a louder tone. "So much the better," said she again; "it could not be too bad for him. He died in bodily torment, and C——— had the torment of a bad conscience for his falsehoods, and W——— lived in mental torment. They all three deserved it."
Lady Hester resumed. "When Mr. Pitt was at Walmer, he recovered his health prodigiously. He used to go to a farm near Walmer, where hay and corn were kept for the horses. He had a room fitted up there with a table and two or three chairs, where he used to write sometimes, and a tidy woman to dress him something to eat. Oh! what slices of bread and butter I have seen him eat there, and hunches of bread and cheese big enough for a ploughman! He used to say that, whenever he could retire from public life, he would have a good English woman cook. Sometimes, after a grand dinner, he would say, 'I want something—I am hungry:' and when I remarked, 'Well, but you are just got up from dinner,' he would add, 'Yes; but I looked round the table, and there was nothing I could eat—all the dishes were so made up, and so unnatural.' Ah, doctor! in town, during the sitting of parliament, what a life was his! Roused from his sleep (for he was a good sleeper) with
