generous. I set
to work with zeal to study anew, and I considered myself bound in
honor not to make farther advances with the daughter until I should
feel satisfied with my proficiency with the law. It was all in
vain. I had an insuperable repugnance to the study; my mind would
not take hold of it; or rather, by long despondency had become for
the time incapable of any application. I was in a wretched state of
doubt and self-distrust. I tried to finish the work which I was
secretly writing, hoping it would give me reputation and gain me
some public employment. In the mean time I saw Matilda every day,
and that helped distract me. In the midst of this struggle and
anxiety, she was taken ill with a cold. Nothing was thought of it
at first, but she grew rapidly worse, and fell into a consumption.
I can not tell you what I suffered. The ills that I have undergone
in this life have been dealt out to me drop by drop, and I have
tasted all their bitterness. I saw her fade rapidly away--beautiful
and more beautiful, and more angelic to the very last. I was often
by her bedside, and in her wandering state of mind she would talk
to me with a sweet, natural, and affecting eloquence that was
overpowering. I saw more of the beauty of her mind in that
delirious state than I had ever known before. Her malady was rapid
in its career, and hurried her off in two months. Her
dying-struggles were painful and protracted. For three days and
nights I did not leave the house, and scarcely slept. I was by her
when she died. All the family were assembled around her, some
praying, others weeping, for she was adored by them all. I was the
last one she looked upon. I have told you as briefly as I could,
what, if I were to tell with all the incidents and feelings that
accompanied it, would fill volumes. She was but seventeen years old
when she died.

'I can not tell you what a horrid state of mind I was in for a long
time. I seemed to care for nothing; the world was a blank to me. I
abandoned all thoughts of the law. I went into the country, but
could not bear solitude, yet could not enjoy society. There was a
dismal horror continually on my mind that made me fear to be alone.
I had often to get up in the night and seek the bedroom of my
brother, as if the having of a huma