it seems as if I had so much to say, I cannot. If
one could imagine--... But it is no use; I cannot write wisely on
this matter. I suppose no human being was ever devoted to another more
entirely than she; and that makes the change not less but more bearable.
It seems as if she could not be gone quite; and that indeed is my faith.

"Mr. James, your New-England friend, was here only for a few days; I saw
him several times, and liked him. They went, on the 24th of last month,
back to London,--or so purposed,--because there is no pavement here for
him to walk on. I want to know where he is, and thought I should be able
to learn from you. I gave him a Note for Mill, who perhaps may have seen
him. I think this is all at present from,

"Yours,
"JOHN STERLING."

Of his health, all this while, we had heard little definite; and
understood that he was very quiet and careful; in virtue of which grand
improvement we vaguely considered all others would follow. Once let him
learn well to be _slow_ as the common run of men are, would not all be
safe and well? Nor through the winter, or the cold spring months, did
bad news reach us; perhaps less news of any kind than had been usual,
which seemed to indicate a still and wholesome way of life and work. Not
till "April 4th, 1844," did the new alarm occur: again on some slight
accident, the breaking of a blood-vessel; again prostration under
dangerous sickness, from which this time he never rose.

There had been so many sudden failings and happy risings again in our
poor Sterling's late course of health, we had grown so accustomed to
mingle blame of his impetuosity with pity for his sad overthrows, we did
not for many weeks quite realize to ourselves the stern fact that here
at length had the peculiar fall come upon us,--the last of all
these falls! This brittle life, which had so often held together and
victoriously rallied under pressures and collisions, could not rally
always, and must one time be shivered. It was not till the summer came
and no improvement; and not even then without lingering glimmers of hope
against hope, that I fairly had to own what had now come, what was now
day by day sternly advancing with the steadiness of Time.

From the first, the doctors spoke despondently; and Sterling himself
felt well that there was no longer any chance of life. He had often said
so, in his former ill