Page:Memoirs of the Lady Hester Stanhope.djvu/200

 laundry a false ceiling, let down and raised by pulleys, served to air the linen after it was ironed. There was a mangle to get up the table-linen, towels, &c., and three stoves for drying on wet days. The tablecloths were of the finest damask, covered with patterns of exquisite workmanship. At set periods of the year, pedlars and merchants from Glasgow, from Dunstable, and other places, passed with their goods. The housekeeper's room was surrounded with presses and closets, where were arranged stores and linen in the nicest order. An ox was killed every week, and a sheep every day, &c., &c. In the relation of these details, which I spare the reader, as being, probably, what he has observed in many other families, Lady Hester by degrees recovered her self-possession, whilst they only served to impress more forcibly on my mind the sad contrast which reigned in everything about her between her former and her present condition.

January 10—15, 1838.—The cough continued, attended by spasms in the limbs. Yet, although she was thus exhausted and harassed by continued suffering, the elasticity of mind she exhibited in the few intervals of ease she enjoyed was astonishing. The moment she had a respite from actual pain, she immediately set about some labour for the benefit of others; and the room was again strewed over with bundles