minute: I wearied Heaven with my prayers;
even now my heart aches at the remembrance of what I suffered, and I
cannot, without trembling, proceed with the woeful story.

"After having lain insensible some days, he recovered the use of speech,
and called upon my name, which he had a thousand times repeated while he
was bereft of reason. All hopes of his life were now relinquished, and
I was led to his bedside to receive his last adieus, being directed to
summon all my fortitude, and suppress my sorrow, that he might not be
disturbed by my agitation. I collected all my resolution to support me
in this affecting scene. I saw my dear lord in extremity. The beauties
of his youth were all decayed; yet his eyes, though languid, retained
unspeakable sweetness and expression. He felt his end approaching, put
forth his hand, and, with a look full of complacency and benevolence,
uttered such a tender tale--good Heaven! how had I deserved such
accumulated affliction, the bare remembrance of which now melts me into
tears? Human nature could not undergo my situation without suffering an
ecstasy of grief. I clasped him in my arms, and kissed him a thousand
times, with the most violent emotions of woe; but I was torn from his
embrace, and in a little time he was ravished for ever from my view.

"On that fatal morning, which put a period to his life, I saw the
duchess of L-- approach my bed, and, from her appearance, concluded that
he was no more; yet I begged she would not confirm the unhappy presage
by announcing his death; and she accordingly preserved the most emphatic
silence. I got up, and trod softly over his head, as if I had been
afraid of interrupting his repose. Alas! he was no longer sensible of
such disturbance. I was seized with a stupefaction of sorrow; I threw
up the window and, looking around, thought the sun shone with the most
dismal aspect; everything was solitary, cheerless, and replete with
horror.

"In this condition I was, by the direction of my friend, conveyed to
her house, where my faculties were so overpowered by the load of anguish
which oppressed me, that I know not what passed during the first days of
my unhappy widowhood; this only I know, the kind duchess treated me with
all imaginable care and compassion, and carried me to her country house,
where I stayed some months; during which, she endeavoured to comfort
me with all the amusements she could invent, and laid me under
such obligations as shall nev