Page:Memoir and correspondence of Caroline Herschel (1876).djvu/161

Rh as a very sensible elderly lady (Mrs. Monson) would be there on a visit.

Aug. 8th.—I went, and at six o'clock in the afternoon of the 10th I was home again. My nephew had left Slough the same morning.

I found my brother seated by the ladies, but so languid that I thought it necessary to take a seemingly unconcerned leave for the night.

Aug. 11th, 12th, 13th, and 14th I went as usual to spend some hours of the forenoon with my brother.

Aug. 15th.—I hastened to the spot where I was wont to find him with the newspaper which I was to read to him. But instead I found Mrs. Morson, Miss Baldwin, and Mr. Bulman, from Leeds, the grandson of my brother's earliest acquaintance in this country. I was informed my brother had been obliged to return to his room, whither I flew immediately. Lady H. and the housekeeper were with him, administering everything which could be thought of for supporting him. I found him much irritated at not being able to grant Mr. Bulman's request for some token of remembrance for his father. As soon as he saw me, I was sent to the library to fetch one of his last papers and a plate of the forty-feet telescope. But for the universe I could not have looked twice at what I had snatched from the shelf, and when he faintly asked if the breaking up of the Milky Way was in it, I said " Yes," and he looked content. I cannot help remembering this circumstance, it was the last time I was sent to the library on such an occasion. That the anxious care for his papers and workrooms never ended but with his life was proved by his frequent whispered inquiries if they were locked and the key safe, of which I took care to assure him that they were, and the key in Lady Herschel's hands.

After half an hour's vain attempt to support himself,