DEATH OF MRS WILSON. 201 



the proper place, they just threw her into a wet black hole 

 in the moor. Well ! what do you think ? — not long ago 

 when all the people themselves were dead (though their 

 sons and daughters remembered the story, because they 

 had been told it by their fathers and mothers), the old 

 woman was discovered by a shepherd looking out of the 

 hole in the moss; and there she lies at this present moment, 

 and may be seen by any one that chooses. I shall shake 

 hands with her, I hope, to-morrow. Would you like me 

 to bring her home to Woodville V 



With his tender feelings and strong affections, it was 

 sometimes well for Mr "Wilson that he was obliged to be 

 busy. Like Baron Cuvier, who sought to dull the anguish 

 caused by the death of his lovely daughter Clementine, by 

 burying himself in absorbing study, many a scholar has 

 had cause to be thankful for the task which tore him away 

 from the too near companionship of sorrow. So was it in 

 1 835, when a double bereavement had befallen Mr Wilson 

 in the death of two of his sisters within a fortnight of one 

 another, but when, in the midst of his grief, he was obliged 

 to sit down for eight unbroken weeks to an article on Ich- 

 thyology ; and so was it destined to prove in a lesser 

 degree under the sorer visitation which overtook him in 

 1837, when he lost his beloved and excellent wife. 



After the death of Mrs Foster, with his characteristic 



