104 MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON. CHAP. III. 



sweet sister Jessie lying ill of smallpox, my friend Brown 

 dangerously ill of fever, and poor Dobbie [an artist friend] 

 dreading the development of consumption. I have been out at 

 Mr. Dobbie this afternoon, and feigning a mirth I did not feel, 

 have succeeded in raising his spirits above their former most 

 melancholy state, without in any degree swerving from the truth. 

 But to my sister I can be of little use, and to my brother and 

 poor Brown not only of none, but an anxious, passive, not even 

 spectator, but most anxious listener, depending on letters for 

 the increase or removal of my sorrows. I don't much crave 

 sympathy, and my brother Daniel would suffice of my own 

 sex; but I've lost him, and it's a terribly awkward way of 

 exchanging feelings, the post. I would I had one dear 

 lady, either beside me or in correspondence, but I am denied 

 so great a privilege, and must e'en feed, as best I can, on my 

 own thoughts, for friends of either sex I have scarcely any to 

 share them with me. What poor - - will do, I don't know ; 

 it's a most melancholy situation, suspense is so agonizing; 

 . . . and the risk of infection makes it impossible for my 

 sister Mary to call there. The fortnight that's to elapse 

 before more news come, how wearisome and long to all of us ! 

 Could it but be annihilated ! I shall exist in most troubled 

 suspense." 



Ten days later he informs Daniel of home affairs : 

 " Lest you should entertain groundless apprehensions regard- 

 ing your sister's health, and magnify her ailments, I, at this 

 early period after the receipt of your most kind and acceptable 

 epistle, sit down to write you ; allow me to give you the con- 

 soling intelligence, that Jessie is declared convalescent, and 

 freed from all the restrictions of an invalid. She is now engaged, 

 after the approved mode of all convalescents, in speculating 

 after the finishing of one meal what shall be the character and 

 quantity of the next : already has she so much progressed, as 

 to have made great havoc in the corner of a beefsteak, not to 

 talk of eggs, calf-foot jelly, grapes, plums, and other such trifles, 

 which are despatched without so much as ' by your leave.' The 

 periods between meals she enlivens, after the equally orthodox 



