the dinner forks, and finally, in a fit of uncontrollable frenzy, stabbed
her mother to the heart.

Charles was at hand only in time to snatch the knife out of her grasp,
before further hurt could be done. He found his father wounded in the
forehead by one of the forks, and his aunt lying insensible, and
apparently dying, on the floor of the room.

This happened on a Thursday; and on the following day an inquest was held
on the mother's body, and a verdict of Mary's lunacy was immediately found
by the jury. The Lambs had a few friends. Mr. Norris--the friend of
Charles's father and of his own childhood--"was very kind to us;" and Sam.
Le Grice "then in town" (Charles writes) "was as a brother to me, and gave
up every hour of his time in constant attendance on my father."

After the fatal deed, Mary Lamb was deeply afflicted. Her act was in the
first instance totally unknown to her. Afterwards, when her consciousness
returned and she was informed of it, she suffered great grief. And
subsequently, when she became "calm and serene," and saw the misfortune in
a clearer light, this was "far, very far from an indecent or forgetful
serenity," as her brother says. She had no defiant air, no affectation,
nor too extravagant a display of sorrow. She saw her act, as she saw all
other things, by the light of her own clear and gentle good sense. She was
sad; but the deed was past recall, and at the time of its commission had
been utterly beyond either her control or knowledge.

After the inquest, Mary Lamb was placed in a lunatic asylum, where, after
a short time, she recovered her serenity. A rapid recovery after violent
madness is not an unusual mark of the disease; it being in cases of quiet,
inveterate insanity, that the return to sound mind (if it ever recur) is