,ET. 84.] LAST DAYS. 399 



with which it was handled, and how the slender fingers 

 felt it all over, noting the chipping and marks with a 

 smile of approval. Nor must we forget the fresh 

 flowers his own flowers, which were daily brought to 

 him, and now as ever contributed so largely to the 

 pleasure of his life. The last little tree of which he 

 superintended the planting was the variegated species 

 of the Thuiopsis, the T. variegata ; and on his more 

 than once inquiring how it had stood the winter, a 

 sprig of the white- tipped foliage was brought to him, 

 when it was characteristic to see the keen interest with 

 which it was handled and examined. 



As the spring wore on it was too apparent that his 

 power of listening to reading had become less, and that 

 he was unable to bear the strain of long - sustained 



o 



attention. At night, when a brief invalid prayer was 

 read a sentence or two he roused himself and joined 

 with fervour, and followed also a few verses of a psalm, 

 ending with a hymn, to which he specially liked to 

 listen. He often asked for the hymn, " Jesus, Lover 

 of my soul " ; but he was so much affected by it that 

 it was found advisable to substitute another. Dr Bury, 

 always on the watch for any amelioration of his posi- 

 tion, suggested his being carried in a recumbent pos- 

 ture into the adjoining library, to a bed placed there. 

 One sad look round at his books those books which he 

 was never again to open was given when he was first 

 moved there ; afterwards he did not appear to notice 

 them. As no harm was done by this experiment of 

 an hour or two daily in the library, Dr Bury arranged 

 for a move, always in a recumbent posture, down to 

 the dining-room on the ground floor, where, from a 

 couch in the bow-window, the invalid in the daytime 

 could look out on the lawn with its flower-beds, and 



