to help off our departure, poor Lever joking and laughing as he helped to wrap us up, and escorted us to the carriage. We shook hands with him, and said good-bye to the others there. As we drove away we looked back and saw him standing with his daughters watching us and waving farewell. We knew it was really good-bye, and our drive was a silent one. “Our apprehensions about Lever’s health were only too well founded, for on our reaching Venice at five o’clock the following afternoon we were met by a telegram saying he had died during the day [1st June]. My father immediately returned to Trieste by a steamer which was just starting, to be of what use he might to his friend’s daughters. The journey by sea occupied twelve hours, and he wrote the next morning as follows: ‘I got here about seven this morning, after a not unpleasant voyage, considering the company and the circumstances. After bath and breakfast I went to Smart’s room and found him and Monson. They said at once how pleased the daughters would be. They had not liked to ask me to come in the telegram, but hoped and expected I would come. I went up and sat for more than an hour with the two mourners. Poor souls! it was most affecting to hear them pouring forth about all their father’s goodness and kindness. Poor Lever had sat talking about us after we left until about his usual hour, twelve. He had the usual restless night until about five, when he fell asleep. He awoke at the usual time for his letters, and after reading them and chatting he lay down to rest. They looked in from time to time as they were in the habit of doing, and found him sleeping quietly, until Miss Lever, going in towards three, found he had apparently passed away without struggle or pain.... It is most melancholy to think of our fine bright friend. Sitting in that drawing-room to-day looking out on the garden, I could hardly help bursting out crying. It seemed hardly realisable. However, his last evening was a bright one, and it was an end such as he had wished. He had a perfect horror of living on weakened in and mind, a weariness to himself and others.’” At six o’clock on the evening of June 3, 1872, all that was mortal of Charles Lever was laid in the British Cemetery at Trieste, alongside the remains of her “whose companionship made the happiness of a long life.” End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Charles Lever, His Life in His Letters, Vol. II (of II), by Edmund Downey and Charles James Lever