2oS J?/SEN B V PERSE VE RANGE. 



pondent in existence as Miss Berwick ; that the name had 

 been assumed by Barry Cornwall's eldest daughter, Miss 

 Adelaide Anne Procter.' 



He thus describes the final ending. She had then lain 

 an invalid upon her bed through fifteen months : — ' In all that 

 time, her old cheerfiilness never quitted her. In all that time, 

 not an impatient or querulous minute can be remembered. 

 At length, at midnight on the 2d of February 1864, she turned 

 down a leaf of a little book she was reading, and shut it up. 

 The ministering hand that had copied the verses into the tiny 

 album was soon around her neck, and she quietly asked, as 

 the clock was on the stroke of one, " Do you think I am 

 dying, mamma?" — "I think you are very, very ill to-night, 

 my dear." " Send for my sister. My feet are so cold. Lift 

 me up ! " Her sister entering as they raised her, she said, 

 "It has come at last!" and with a bright and happy smile 

 looked upward and departed.' 



The publication of Dickens' last complete novel began in 

 May 1864, and extended to November 1865. It was issued 

 in the old twenty-number form, a shape which might on 

 the whole yield a larger pecuniary return than the ordinary 

 orthodox three-volume novel. Of Our Mutual Friend, John 

 Forster, his biographer, remarks : — ' When somewhat tired 

 in September 1865 from the labour of writing this tale, he 

 turned to his new Christmas number, and produced the 

 delightful Doctor Marigold'' s Prescript w?is. He wrote : " Tired 

 with Our Mutual, I sat down to cast about for an idea, with 

 a depressing notion that I was, for the moment, overworked. 

 Suddenly the little character that you will see, and all 

 belonging to it, came flashing up in the most cheerful manner, 

 and I had only to look on and leisurely describe it." Before 



