Page:Memoirs of the Lady Hester Stanhope.djvu/234

 Lady Hester Stanhope to shut herself up from Tuesday at sunset until the sunset of Wednesday, during which time she saw nobody, if she could avoid it, did no business, and always enjoined me to meddle in no affairs of hers during these twenty-four hours. Wednesday was an unlucky day with her, a dies nefastus. After sunset, I waited on her, and found her languid, moaning, and still visibly suffering from her yesterday's exertion; for it appeared, although I had not seen her, that she had walked about her garden, forcing her strength so far as to deceive the gardeners, who had given out that she would soon be as well as ever; and this was what, no doubt, —she aimed at, for the purpose of confounding the secretary.

Reminding her of the wish she had expressed to have Mrs. M.'s company, I now proposed that she, my daughter, and the governess, should sit with her by turns, suggesting that, by this means, much of the disagreeable service of the maids, whom she constantly complained of, might be dispensed with. But to this she answered, "No, doctor, it will not do: you must tell them how very much obliged to them I am for their kind offers and intentions, but that their presence will only be an embarrassment to me. You don't consider the matter in its true point of view, as you never do anything. In the first place, it kills