“It seems that the young lady had been once before deranged. The jury, of course, brought in their verdict--_Lunacy_.” The _True Briton_ said: “It appears that she had been before in the earlier part of her life deranged, from the harassing fatigues of too much business. As her carriage toward her mother had always been affectionate in the extreme, it is believed her increased attachment to her, as her infirmities called for it by day and by night, caused her loss of reason at this time. It has been stated in some of the morning papers that she has an insane brother in confinement; but this is without foundation.” I ask you to notice with what decent reticence, so far from the ways, and so foolish in the eyes, of our modern journalistic shamelessness, all the names are suppressed in this report. It is certain that it would not be looked on with favour in the office of any enterprising journal, nowadays! One error the reporter did make; it was not the landlord, but Charles, who came at the child’s cries; luckily at hand just in time to disarm his sister, and thus prevent further harm. So he was at hand from that day on, all through his life, holding her and helping her in the frequent successive returns of her wretched malady. His gentle, loving, resolute soul proved its fine and firm fibre under the strain of more than forty years of undeviating devotion to which I know no parallel. He quietly gave up all other ties and cares and pleasures for this supreme duty; he never for one hour remitted his vigil; he never repined or posed, he never even said to himself that he was doing something fine. And such is the potency of this intangible tonic of unselfish self-sacrifice, that _his_ tremulous nerves grew tenser under its action, and his reason relaxed her rule thenceforward never any more. The poor guiltless murderess was sent by the authorities to an asylum at Hoxton. There John Lamb and their friends thought it best to isolate her, safely and quietly, for life, spite of her intervals of sanity; but, from the outset, Charles fought against this, offered his life-long personal guardianship--this boy of twenty-two, with only £100 a year!--and at length succeeded in squeezing consent from the crown officials. He counts up, in a letter to Coleridge, the coin “Daddy and I” can spare for Mary, and computes all the care she will bring: “I know John will make speeches about it, _but she shall not go into an hospital_.” So he meets her as she comes out, and they walk away through life hand in hand, even as they used to walk through the fields many a time in later years on the approach of one of her repeated relapses; he leading her back to temporary retirement in the asylum, hand in hand together, both silently crying!