I844-54- DEATH OF A SISTER. 22p 



I called the very day of his death, and found him, to my 

 utter horror, believed to be rapidly sinking." 



In the spring of 1847, there came again one of those 

 great waves of sorrow which, from time to time, well-nigh 

 overwhelmed George. 



The heart-affection from which his sister Mary had suf- 

 fered for many years, had compelled cessation of active 

 exertion, and in her comparative exclusion from the outer 

 world, it had been her great delight to act, so far as 

 strength permitted, as George's amanuensis, entering into 

 all his literary pursuits with keen interest. The two were 

 so inseparable, that friends often compared them to Charles 

 Lamb and his sister Mary, between whom a similar union 

 existed. Her gentle, patient endurance of sufferings, made 

 their gradual increase, for some months previous to her 

 death, less marked in the family, and only one night of 

 great distress intervened between the ordinary routine and 

 the blank occasioned by such a loss. The following letter 

 to Dr. Cairns conveys the first expression of George's 

 desolation : 



"April 21, 1847. 



" DEAREST FRIEND, I have the mournful news to com- 

 municate to you, that Mary is gone to the world of spirits. 

 How deeply I loved her I need not tell you, nor how 

 deeply she deserved the inadequate affection I felt for her. 

 I count upon your full appreciation of the greatness of 

 my loss, in the sundering of the earthly bond between 

 Mary and me. 



" She died this morning about eleven o'clock, so gently, 

 that the spirit had fled before Jessie, who was watching 

 her, observed its flight. . . . We apprehended no serious 

 danger; . . . yesterday we thought her better than .-she 



