On the morning of Wednesday, the 8th (one of the loveliest days of a lovely summer), he was very well; in excellent spirits about his book, of which he said he _must_ finish his number that day--the next (Thursday) being the day of his weekly visit to "All the Year Round" office. Therefore, he would write all day in the Chalet, and take no walk or drive until the evening. In the middle of the day he came to the house for an hour's rest, and smoked a cigar in the conservatory--out of which new addition to the house he was taking the greatest personal enjoyment--and seemed perfectly well, and exceedingly cheerful and hopeful. When he came again to the house, about an hour before the time fixed for the early dinner, he seemed very tired, silent, and absorbed. But this was so usual with him after a day of engrossing work, that it caused no alarm or surprise to his sister-in-law--the only member of his household who happened to be at home. He wrote some letters--among them, these last letters which we give--in the library of the house, and also arranged many trifling business matters, with a view to his departure for London the next morning. He was to be accompanied, on his return at the end of the week, by Mr. Fildes, to introduce the "new illustrator" to the neighbourhood in which many of the scenes of this last book of Charles Dickens, as of his first, were laid. It was not until they were seated at the dinner-table that a striking change in the colour and expression of his face startled his sister-in-law, and on her asking him if he was ill, he said, "Yes, very ill; I have been very ill for the last hour." But on her expressing an intention of sending instantly for a doctor, he stopped her, and said: "No, he would go on with dinner, and go afterwards to London." And then he made an effort to struggle against the fit that was fast coming on him, and talked, but incoherently, and soon very indistinctly. It being now evident that he _was_ ill, and very seriously ill, his sister-in-law begged him to come to his own room before she sent off for medical help. "Come and lie down," she entreated. "Yes, on the ground," he said, very distinctly--these were the last words he spoke--and he slid from her arm, and fell upon the floor. The servants brought a couch into the dining-room, where he was laid. A messenger was despatched for Mr. Steele, the Rochester doctor, and with a telegram to his doctor in London, and to his daughters. This was a few minutes after six o'clock. His daughters arrived, with Mr. Frank Beard, this same evening. His eldest son the next morning, and his son Henry and his sister Letitia in the evening of the 9th--too late, alas!