is life was at an end.

So he has gone from us. This was, as I think, a great man--though the
world never knew him. He had the sweetest temper I have ever met with.
The loss of him makes me feel very lonely. Perhaps I have never been
quite myself since my illness. Sometimes, I think of giving up my
practice, and going away, and trying what some of the foreign baths and
waters will do for me.

It is reported here, that you and Miss Verinder are to be married next
month. Please to accept my best congratulations.

The pages of my poor friend's Journal are waiting for you at my
house--sealed up, with your name on the wrapper. I was afraid to trust
them to the post.

My best respects and good wishes attend Miss Verinder. I remain, dear
Mr. Franklin Blake, truly yours,

THOMAS CANDY.

EIGHTH NARRATIVE

Contributed by GABRIEL BETTEREDGE

I am the person (as you remember no doubt) who led the way in these
pages, and opened the story. I am also the person who is left behind, as
it were, to close the story up.

Let nobody suppose that I have any last words to say here concerning the
Indian Diamond. I hold that unlucky jewel in abhorrence--and I refer you
to other authority than mine, for such news of the Moonstone as you may,
at the present time, be expected to receive. My purpose, in this place,
is to state a fact in the history of the family, which has been passed
over by everybody, and which I won't allow to be disrespectfully
smothered up in that way. The fact to which I allude is--the marriage of
Miss Rachel and Mr. Franklin Blake. This interesting event took place at
our house in Yorkshire, on Tuesday, October ninth, eighteen hundred and
forty-nine. I had a new suit of clothes on the occasion. And the married
couple went to spend the honeymoon in Scotland.

Family festivals having been rare enough at our house, since my poor
mistress's death, I own--on this occasion of the wedding--to having
(towards the latter part of the day) taken a drop too much on the
strength of it.

If you have ever done the same sort of thing yourself you will
understand and feel for me. If you have not, you will very likely say,
"Disgusting old man! why does he tell us this?" The reason why is now to
come.

Having, then, taken my drop (bless you! you have got your favourite
vice, too; only your vice isn't mine, and mine isn't yours), I next
applied the one infallible remedy--that remedy being, as you know,
ROBINSON CRUSOE