saw and dreaded from the first. "I know how wretched and feverish one feels after two or three nights' waking," Caroline writes of her own all-night vigils. With a woman's quickness for those she loves, she sometimes managed to shield her brother, wearied, like her, with an all-night sitting, from these thoughtless callers. "In my way into the garden," she writes, as far back as 1797, "I was met and detained by Lord S. and another gentleman, who came to see my brother and his telescopes. By way of preventing too long an interruption, I told the gentlemen that I had just found a comet, and wanted to settle its place. I pointed it out to them, and after having seen it they took their leave." But she could not always thus act the part of guardian angel. On October 4, 1806, "two parties from the Castle came to see the comet," observed two days before, "and during the whole month my brother had not an evening to himself. . . . It has ever been my opinion that on the 14th of October his nerves received a shock of which he never got the better afterwards; for on that day (in particular) he had hardly dismissed his troop of men," assisting him in the laborious work of polishing the 40-feet mirror, "when visitors assembled, and from the time it was dark till past midnight he was on the grass-plot surrounded by between fifty and sixty persons, without having had time for putting on proper clothing, or for the least nourishment passing his lips. Among the company, I remember, were the Duke of Sussex, Prince Galitzin, Lord Damley, a number of officers. Admiral Boston, and some ladies." The picture is outlined with a clearness nothing but strong feeling could inspire; the strain was manifestly
