What can I say in return for your interesting and amusing
letter? I live here quite alone, and see nobody, so that I have not a word of
news for you. I delight in your visit to Scotland, which I am sure would turn
to good, and which I hope you will, as you say, periodically repeat. It makes
me quite happy to find you beating up for recruits, and most ardently do I wish
you success. Mention me kindly to Scott, and
tell him how much I long to renew our wonted acquaintance. Southey’s article is, I think, excellent
I have softened matters a little. Barrow
is hard at work on Flinders [Q. R. 23]. I have still a most melancholy house. My poor
housekeeper is going fast. Nothing
can save her, and I lend all my care to soften her declining days. She has a
physician every second day, and takes a world of medicines, more for their
profit than her own, poor thing. She lives on fruit, grapes principally, and a
little game, which is the only food she can digest. Guess at my expenses; but I
owe in some measure the extension of my feeble life to her care through a long
succession of years, and I would cheerfully divide my last farthing with
| DEATH OF GIFFORD’S HOUSEKEEPER. | 263 |
