Page:Memoirs of the Lady Hester Stanhope.djvu/356

 couple of hours. Notwithstanding this, her pulse maintained a degree of vigour which was very extraordinary, considering the state of attenuation to which she was reduced. She had a great reluctance in touching on her bad symptoms, but dwelt readily on such as were favourable. "I certainly have got small abscesses," she answered to me, "but it is not consumption: because there are hours in the day when my lungs are perfectly free, as there are others when I can hardly breathe. Sometimes, doctor, my pulse is entirely gone, or so thin—so thin!—as to be but just perceptible, and no more. You pretend to find it very readily and tell me it is not bad: but Zezefôon can't feel it, and Sàada can't feel it, and old Pierre has tried, and says the same. I think, too," continued she, "I was a little delirious this morning; for, when I awoke, I asked where Zezefôon had gone, although there she was, sitting up on her mattress by my bedside before my eyes."