Page:Memoirs of the Lady Hester Stanhope.djvu/72

 better," answered Lady Hester. I thought she had not heard me well. "It was a lamentable end, that of Mr.," I repeated with a louder tone. "So much the better," said she again; "it could not be too bad for him. He died in bodily torment, and C had the torment of a bad conscience for his falsehoods, and W lived in mental torment. They all three deserved it."

Lady Hester resumed. "When Mr. Pitt was at Walmer, he recovered his health prodigiously. He used to go to a farm near Walmer, where hay and corn were kept for the horses. He had a room fitted up there with a table and two or three chairs, where he used to write sometimes, and a tidy woman to dress him something to eat. Oh! what slices of bread and butter I have seen him eat there, and hunches of bread and cheese big enough for a ploughman! He used to say that, whenever he could retire from public life, he would have a good English woman cook. Sometimes, after a grand dinner, he would say, 'I want something—I am hungry:' and when I remarked, 'Well, but you are just got up from dinner,' he would add, 'Yes; but I looked round the table, and there was nothing I could eat—all the dishes were so made up, and so unnatural.' Ah, doctor! in town, during the sitting of parliament, what a life was his! Roused from his sleep (for he was a good sleeper) with