e told you) at Lady Canning's
grave. Poor Robert, how little did I think when we parted that I was
never to see him again! How little at least, that he would be the
defaulter! He has left few equals behind him: so true, so upright, so
steady in his principles, and so winning in his manners. Of late years
we have been much apart, but for very many we were closely together,
and perhaps no two brothers were ever more mutually helpful. Strange,
that with Frederick and me in these regions, he should have been
carried off first, by a malady which belongs to them.[3]... I write at
random and confusedly, for I have nothing to guide me but that one
word. And yet how much in that one word! It tells me that I have lost
a wise counsellor in difficulties; a stanch friend in prosperity and
adversity; one on whom, if anything had befallen myself, I could
always have relied to care for those left behind me. It tells, too, of
the dropping of a link of that family chain which has always been so
strong and unbroken.

In writing to his second boy he touched the same chords in a different
tone.

You have lost (he said) a kind and good uncle, and a kind and good
godfather, and you are now the only Robert Bruce in the family. It is
a good name, and you must try and bear it nobly and bravely, as those
who have borne it before you have done. If you look at their lives you
will see that they always considered in the first place what they
ought to do, and only in the second what it might be most pleasant and
agreeable to do. This is the way to steer a straight course through
life, and to meet the close of it, as your dear Uncle did, with a
smile on his lips.

[Sidenote: The hot season.]

From this time his journal contains more and more frequent notices of the
oppressive heat of the weather, and its effects upon his own health and
comfort. He remained, however, at his post at Calcutta, with the exception
of a brief stay at a bungalow lent to him by Mr. Beadon at Bhagulpore; his
pleasantest occupation being the arrangement of plans for smoothing the
path of Lady Elgin, who had settled to join him in India.

_August 2nd._--Yesterday, I received your letter, with all the sad
details.... It was truly a lovely death, in harmony with the life that
preceded it.... It is indeed a heavy blow to all.... This is a sad
letter, but my heart is