st then the old and infamous slander had been
revived. There was in this case no love, no esteem, no respect,--and
there could have been no discharge of duty that was not thankless and
irksome.

They were married a fortnight, at least, before the wedding was
announced, even to friends. A sad story was some time afterwards
circulated,--the truth of which I have no means of knowing,--that Mr.
Maclean had been engaged to a lady in Scotland, which engagement he had
withdrawn, and that she was in the act of sealing a letter to him when
her dress caught fire, and she was burnt to death.

The last time I saw L. E. L. was in Upper Berkeley Street, Connaught
Square, on the 27th of June, 1838, soon after her marriage, when she was
on the eve of her fatal voyage. A farewell party was given to some of
her friends by Mrs. Sheddon, with whom she then boarded,--the Misses
Lance having resigned their school. When the proper time arrived, there
was a whisper round the table, and, as I was the oldest of her friends
present, it fell to my lot to propose her health. I did so with the
warmth I felt. The chances were that we should never meet again; and I
considered myself free to speak of her in terms such as could not but
have gratified any husband,--except the husband she had chosen,--and
sought to convey to Maclean's mind the high _respect_, as well as
affection, with which we all regarded her. The reader may imagine the
chill that came over the party when Maclean rose to return thanks. He
merely said, "If Mrs. Maclean has as many friends as Mr. Hall says she
has, I only wonder they allowed her to leave them." One by one the
guests rose and departed, with a brief and mournful farewell. Probably
not one of them all ever saw her again.

She sailed with her husband for Africa on the 5th of July, 1838. On the
15th of August she landed, and on the 15th of October she was
dead!--dying, according to a coroner's jury, "of having incautiously
taken a dose of prussic acid."

The circumstances of her death will be forever a mystery; for her
husband has since "died and made no sign"; but no one ever heard of her
having had this horrible medicine in her possession. Dr. Thomson, who
made up her medicine-chest, and who had been her attendant for many
years, declared he never prescribed it for her; and it was next to
impossible she could have possessed it. To the various rumors that arose
out of her death I do not allude. I do not believe she commit