270 THE LIFE OF PHILIP HENRY GOSSE. 



My mother's condition, however, was growing more 

 hopeless week by week, and, under the cruel severity of the 

 treatment, her anguish had become absolutely constant. 

 She now slept only under the inducement of opiates ; and, 

 at last, after torturing her delicate frame so savagely for 

 eight months, the doctor confessed that the malady was 

 beyond his skill. On December 24 she was taken home, 

 a wreck and shadow of herself, to Huntingdon Street, and 

 for the brief remainder of her life she was under the 

 soothing care of the eminent homoeopathic physician, 

 Dr. John Epps, whose principle appeared mainly to consist 

 in the alleviating and deadening of pain. Now, for the 

 first time, these sanguine lovers realized that the hour 

 of their parting was at hand ; and they faced the know- 

 ledge with fortitude. The extreme kindness of a cousin, 

 ' Mrs. Morgan, was an immense relief to both. This lady 

 •came up from Clifton, unsolicited, and undertook the 

 night-nursing of the patient until near the end. The 

 harrowing details of these last weeks are given with too 

 faithful and self-torturing minuteness by my father in his 

 Memorial. The long-drawn agony, borne to the very last 

 with an ever-increasing saintly patience, came to a close 

 at one o'clock on the morning of Monday, February 9, 

 1857. My mother lies in the remotest corner of Abney 

 Park Cemetery. 



