secretly writing, hoping it would give me reputation and gain me some public employment. In the mean time I saw Matilda every day, and that helped distract me. In the midst of this struggle and anxiety, she was taken ill with a cold. Nothing was thought of it at first, but she grew rapidly worse, and fell into a consumption. I can not tell you what I suffered. The ills that I have undergone in this life have been dealt out to me drop by drop, and I have tasted all their bitterness. I saw her fade rapidly away--beautiful and more beautiful, and more angelic to the very last. I was often by her bedside, and in her wandering state of mind she would talk to me with a sweet, natural, and affecting eloquence that was overpowering. I saw more of the beauty of her mind in that delirious state than I had ever known before. Her malady was rapid in its career, and hurried her off in two months. Her dying-struggles were painful and protracted. For three days and nights I did not leave the house, and scarcely slept. I was by her when she died. All the family were assembled around her, some praying, others weeping, for she was adored by them all. I was the last one she looked upon. I have told you as briefly as I could, what, if I were to tell with all the incidents and feelings that accompanied it, would fill volumes. She was but seventeen years old when she died. 'I can not tell you what a horrid state of mind I was in for a long time. I seemed to care for nothing; the world was a blank to me. I abandoned all thoughts of the law. I went into the country, but could not bear solitude, yet could not enjoy society. There was a dismal horror continually on my mind that made me fear to be alone. I had often to get up in the night and seek the bedroom of my brother, as if the having of a human being by me would relieve me from the frightful gloom of my own thoughts.