one of the surgeons, a day or two afterwards, on seeing the state of
the wound. But the others laughed at the suggestion, and my father, at
first inclined to submit to the amputation, was persuaded to "leave
Nature alone."

About the middle of August, 1852, he got wet through, riding on the top
of an omnibus, and the wetting resulted in a severe cold, which
"settled on his chest." One of the most eminent doctors of the day, as
able as he was rough in manner, was called to see him. He examined him
carefully, sounded his lungs, and left the room followed by my mother.
"Well?" she asked, scarcely anxious as to the answer, save as it might
worry her husband to be kept idly at home. "You must keep up his
spirits," was the thoughtless answer. "He is in a galloping
consumption; you will not have him with you six weeks longer." The wife
staggered back, and fell like a stone on the floor. But love triumphed
over agony, and half an hour later she was again at her husband's side,
never to leave it again for ten minutes at a time, night or day, till
he was lying with closed eyes asleep in death.

I was lifted on to the bed to "say good-bye to dear papa" on the day
before his death, and I remember being frightened at his eyes which
looked so large, and his voice which sounded so strange, as he made me
promise always to be "a very good girl to darling mamma, as papa was
going right away." I remember insisting that "papa should kiss Cherry,"
a doll given me on my birthday, three days before, by his direction,
and being removed, crying and struggling, from the room. He died on the
following day, October 5th, and I do not think that my elder brother
and I--who were staying at our maternal grandfather's--went to the
house again until the day of the funeral. With the death, my mother
broke down, and when all was over they carried her senseless from the