_May 2._--I wrote and read for three hours, and then walked, the day being soft and delightful; but alas! all my walks are lonely from the absence of my poor companion. She does not suffer, thank God, but strength must fail at last. Since Sunday there has been a gradual change--very gradual--but, alas! to the worse. My hopes are almost gone. But I am determined to stand this grief as I have done others. _May 4._--On visiting Lady Scott's sick-room this morning, I found her suffering, and I doubt if she knew me. Yet, after breakfast, she seemed serene and composed. The worst is, she will not speak out about the symptoms under which she labors. Sad, sad work; I am under the most melancholy apprehension, for what constitution can hold out under these continued and wasting attacks. _May 6._--The same scene of hopeless (almost) and unavailing anxiety. Still welcoming me with a smile, and asserting she is better. I fear the disease is too deeply entwined with the principles of life. Yet the increase of good weather, especially if it would turn more genial, might, I think, aid her excellent constitution. Still laboring at this _Review_, without heart or spirits to finish it. _May 10._--To-morrow I leave my home. To what scene I may suddenly be recalled, it wrings my heart to think. _Edinburgh, May 11._--Charlotte was unable to take leave of me, being in a sound sleep, after a very indifferent night. Perhaps it was as well. Emotion might have hurt her; and nothing I could have exprest would have been worth the risk. I have foreseen, for two years and more, that this menaced event could not be far distant. I have seen plainly, within the last two months, that recovery was hopeless. And yet to part with the companion of twenty-nine years when so very ill--that I did not, could not foresee. It withers my heart to think of it, and to recollect that I can hardly hope again to seek confidence and counsel from that ear to which all might be safely confided. But in her present lethargic state, what would my attentions have availed? and Anne has promised close and constant intelligence. I must dine with James Ballantyne to-day _en famille_. I can not help it; but would rather be at home and alone. However, I can go out too. I will not yield to the barren sense of hopelessness which struggles to invade me. I past a pleasant day with J. B.,[14] which was a great relief from the black dog which would have worried me at home. We were quite alone. _May 15._--Received the melancholy intelligence that all is over at Abbotsford. _Abbotsford, May 16._--She died at nine in the morning, after being very ill for two days--easy at last.