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98 been thus painfully affected, the nature of his malady was such as to be entirely unconnected with the mental powers? Besides, those powers had been exhibited, in all their native vigour, even to the last stage of his life, and had wonderfully operated in sustaining him during the whole course of an excruciating and protracted illness.

"No," thought the General, "view the subject in any light, and it cannot but be seen that when an inflammatory disorder spreads its destructiveness throughout the frame, at an age within a few years of eighty, but little hope can reasonably be entertained of recovery."

Soothed by such reflections, the warm stream which had fled to his heart again circulated through his veins. However inwardly he might deplore his early errors, or whatever might have been his misfortunes, he was certain they had never so much unhinged his father as to produce the fatal catastrophe alluded to by her Ladyship. If her feelings were not heightened, by excessive anguish, into a sort of temporary delirium, the letter she had written to him sprung from the politic and subtle motive of shutting her doors against him—the doors of that dwelling which, after her own demise, ought properly to descend to himself, in right of