e place where they are buried; and I think they are the
people one feels most for, for though they do all they can, after
they are dead one never hears any more about them.
Soon after their arrival at Berlin, Lady Minto fell dangerously ill. From
September, 1832, there is a long gap in Lady Fanny's diary, for she had no
heart to set anything down. This long stretch of anxiety coming when she
was sixteen years old, if it did not change her nature, brought to light
new qualities which were to mark her character henceforward. There is a
little entry written down eight years afterwards on the birthday of her
sister Charlotte which shows that she, as well as others, looked back on
this time as a turning-point in her life.
Bob'm sixteen to-day, just the age I began to be unhappy, because I
began to think. Heaven spare her from the doubts and fears that
tormented me.
During the months of her mother's gradual recovery she seems each day to
have been happier than on the one before.
_June_ 6, 1833, POTSDAM
At a little before eleven this morning, Mary, Ginkie, Henry, [7]
Mr. Lettsom [8] and I set off from Berlin in a very curious rickety
machine of a carriage, to leave Mama for a whole day and night,
which feels very impossible, and is the best sign of her (health)
that one could have. We were very happy and we thought everything
looking very nice. We were sorry to see no friends as we left
Berlin, for we looked so beautiful in our jolting little conveyance
with four horses and a post-boy blowing the old tune on his horn.
[7] Her brother, afterwards Sir Henry Elliot.
[8] The tutor.
To escape the heat of Berlin they moved out to Freienwalde.
_June_ 14, 1833, FREIENWALDE
A beautiful morning, and at about 10 they all set off from Berlin,
leaving Mama, Papa, Bob'm and I to follow after in the coach. After
they went, there were two long hours of going backwards and
forwards through the empty rooms, then having said a sad good-bye
to Senden,[9] Hymen,[9] Mr. Lettsom and Fitz, though we know we
shall see them again soon, we got into the coach with the squirrel
in a bag and drove off. I could not help feeling very sorry to
leave it all, though it will be so very nice to be out of it, but I
knew we should never be all there again as we have been, and all
the misery we have had in that house makes one feel still more all
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