The next year opens, as so many previous ones have done. The bare facts of the steadily narrowing life being set down with the same brevity and unswerving attention to _the one_ object. The family was in much anxiety on account of the failing health of Mrs. Beckwith, the niece of Lady Herschel, of whom, as Miss Baldwin, frequent mention has been made. The spring and summer were passed in taking the sufferer to different places in the country, but she was sinking in a rapid decline, and died in the autumn. [Sidenote: 1819-1821. _Extracts from Diary._] _Nov. 10th._—The remains of Mrs. Beckwith were brought to Upton to be buried, and to me was left the melancholy task of keeping up my poor brother’s spirits on such a melancholy occasion, when at the same time my own were at their lowest ebb, and being besides much molested about this time by the rejoicing of an unruly mob at the acquittal (as they called it) of the Princess of Wales. From the 26th to 29th I was with my brother. _March._—We lost our brother Alexander, who died at Hanover.[26] * * * * * _May 22nd._—Again with my brother. My chief care was to see that my brother was not fatigued by too many visitors, and reading to him to prevent his sleeping too much. * * * * * * * * * * The volume ends in October, 1821. “Here closed my Day-book, for one day passed like another, except that I, from my daily calls, returned to my solitary and cheerless home with increased anxiety for each following day.” [Sidenote: 1822. _Death of Sir William Herschel._] On the 25th of August, 1822, Sir William Herschel died in his house at Slough. A small book, containing a very few pages, entitled “Memorandum from 1823 to,” &c., gives the sad history of the last days of that long life of indefatigable toil over which the devoted sister had watched so long with untiring love. It would be easy, and perhaps in some respects preferable, to tell the story without the details, but it would be at the cost of much that is characteristic and illustrative of the nature which has thus far been unfolded from within, and it is the last chapter of her life which she thought worth recalling to memory and committing to paper. The terrible blow of the death of her brother seems to have deprived her of all power or desire to do or to will anything beyond the one stern, dogged resolve to leave England for ever as soon as the beloved remains were buried from her sight. Six months after her return to Hanover she thus prefaced this last and most pathetic of her _Recollections_:— HANOVER, _April 15th, 1823_.