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50 The arrival of his daughter, Lady Susan, at the end of 1854, and the comfort which she brought into his life, alone enabled him to go through the next thirteen months. A tour in Southern India, and a refreshing pause on the Nilgiris, nerved him for his final effort. On the 7th of February, 1856, Oudh was annexed. On the last day of that month Lord Dalhousie resigned his office. 'It is well,' he said to his physician on the 26th, 'that there are only twenty-nine days in this month. I could not have held out two days more.'

'As for my health, Ján Lárin,' he wrote to John Lawrence, 'I am a cripple in every sense.' On the 28th February he presided at Council for the last time, bidding each of his colleagues an affectionate farewell. The touching words of reply, by the Senior Member, reveal the habitual control which Lord Dalhousie so sternly imposed on his haughty temper in dealing with men. Not one angry word, said Mr. Dorin, had ever passed among them in that room. Next day, the 29th, Lord Dalhousie went through the formal ceremony of receiving his successor. Lord Canning, at the top of the spacious stairs which lead up to Government House.

The contrast between the two men, once undergraduates together at Christ Church, long dwelt in the memory of the civil and military dignitaries who, according to custom, stood on either side of