When Lady Hamilton, some hours before her death, felt that the end was surely coming, not having (after all the fortune which had poured through her hands) the wherewithal to pay a lawyer's fee for drawing up a will, she had given her these books, bidding her to sell them, and take what they brought to recompense her for her kindness and the expense to which she had been put. They were, her Ladyship said, journals of the years 1798, 1799 and 1800; the happiest years of her life, which she had spent in his Lordship's friendship on the shores of their beloved Mediterranean, and presented by him to her as a memorial of them. Had the ungrateful nation not neglected his last charge that it should maintain her, she would have bequeathed these volumes to it; but seeing that Mrs. Hunter had proved herself her best friend since Lord Nelson's glorious death, it was right that she should have them to sell and recompense herself. Accordingly, having been given by My Lady Captain Hardres's name, among others of his Lordship's dearest friends,--Will bowed gravely,--and the sailing packet which had brought her from Boulogne having landed her at Dover, she had come to him first, as being the nearest of the gentlemen mentioned (Eastry is but a few miles from Dover); and then she came direct to the point--would Will purchase these journals of the Admiral? She named a very great price; but then Will, living in such a mansion-house as Eastry, in the style that he affected, was clearly a man of great means. As I expected, he would not promise her at once, and inquired where she would sleep for the night; and, I think, he was about to require her to leave them with him until the morning, which I am sure to the simple soul would have seemed like leaving her purse in a strange house, when Katherine came in, looking like her own daughter, with the added gentleness of years of happy wifehood, though she was a mettlesome creature, and not to be frightened by Will or the devil. Will put his arm round her youthful waist, and led her into the oriel to repeat everything, she glancing from time to time at Mrs. Hunter. When he had finished they came back again, and Will began, with some hesitation, "Mrs. ----," when Katherine, reading what was in his eyes, said, "You are never going to let her who performed the last offices for the woman the Admiral loved with all the wealth of his great heart--you are never going to let the lady sleep in a poor village inn, when there are two of the Admiral's officers in this very house?" To which Will replied gallantly, "You are the mistress of this house, Kitty, and such an invitation should come from a lady." I think he was glad of the proposal, for it gave him the opportunity of judging the woman that would sell the books, as well as the books she would sell. Though no talker, Will was, as silent men are apt to be, an observer of character, and I could tell that he was not wholly satisfied.