But the time was coming when Frances was to learn that life has its trials even for the most favoured children of fortune. In the spring of 1783, Mr. Crisp’s old enemy the gout fixed upon his head and chest; and, after an illness of some duration, he sank under the attack. His fits of gout had latterly become so constant that at first the fatal seizure caused little apprehension. In the early part of his sufferings Fanny sent frequent letters to cheer him. ‘God bless,’ she writes, ‘and restore you, my most dear daddy! You know not how kindly I take your thinking of me, and inquiring about me, in an illness that might so well make you forget us all; but Susan assures me your heart is as affectionate as ever to your ever and ever faithful and loving child.’ As soon as danger was declared, she hastened to Chesington. She attended the old man throughout his last few days; he called her, at parting, ‘the dearest thing to him on earth;’ and her passionate sorrow for his death excited the alarm, though not the jealousy, of her natural father.[58] And this loss was not the only trouble of that year. Mrs. Thrale had for some time been meditating her foolish second marriage. As soon as ‘Cecilia’ was off her mind, Miss Burney had resumed her visits to Streatham. She at once found that her friend was changed. Mrs. Thrale had become absent, restless, moody. The secret of her attachment to Piozzi was not long in being disclosed to Fanny, who could give her comfort, though not sympathy. The latter remained long enough at Streatham to witness the gradual estrangement of her hostess from Dr. Johnson. One morning the Doctor accompanied his little Burney in the carriage to London: as they turned into Streatham Common, he exclaimed, pointing backwards: ‘That house is lost to _me_ for ever!’ A few weeks later, the house was let to Lord Shelburne. Mrs. Thrale retired to Brighton, and afterwards coming to town, passed the winter in Argyle Street. Frances spent much time with her there. But in the beginning of April the uneasy widow went with her three eldest daughters to take up her abode at Bath, till she could make up her mind to complete the match which all her friends disapproved. Crisp’s illness becoming serious shortly afterwards, left Fanny no time at first to grieve over this separation. She felt it all the more on her return to St. Martin’s Street after her daddy’s death. And in the summer, Dr. Johnson’s health, which for some time had been steadily declining, was broken down by a stroke of paralysis. She visited him frequently at his house in Bolt Court. One evening, when she with her father and some others were sitting with him, he turned aside to her, and, grasping her hand, said: ‘The blister I have tried for my breath has betrayed some very bad tokens; but I will not terrify myself by talking of them. Ah, _priez Dieu pour moi_!’