than poor Patrick could have commanded in lodgings.  Above all, the resident surgeon—­now a distinguished physician, superintendent of a lunatic asylum—­was a man to make a friend of,—­a man of cultivated mind, tender heart, and cheerful and gentle manners.  Patrick won his heart at once; and every note of Patrick’s glowed with affection for Doctor H—.  After a few weeks of alternating hope and fear, after a natural series of fluctuations of spirits, Patrick wrote me a remarkably quiet letter.  He told me that both his doctors had given him a plain answer to his question whether he could recover.  They had told him that it was impossible; but he could not learn from them how long they thought he would live.  He saw now, however, that he must give up his efforts to work.  He believed he could have worked a little:  but perhaps he was no judge; and if he really was dying, he could not be wrong in obeying the directions of those who had the care of him.  Once afterwards he told me that his physicians did not, he saw, expect him to live many months,—­perhaps not even many weeks.

It was now clear to my mind what would please him best.  I told him, that, if he liked to furnish me with the address of that house in Dublin in which his thoughts chiefly lived, I would take care that the young lady there should know that he died in honor, having fairly entered upon the literary career which had always been his aspiration, and surrounded by friends whose friendship was a distinction.  His words in reply were few, calm, and fervent, intimating that he now had not a care left in the world:  and Doctor H—­wondered what had happened to make him so gay from the hour he received my letter.

His decline was a rapid one; and I soon learned, by very short notes, that he hardly left his bed.  When it was supposed that he would never leave his room again, he surprised the whole household by a great feat.  I should have related before what a favorite he was with all the other patients.  He was the sunshine of the house while able to get to the drawing-room, and the pet of each invalid by the chamber-fire.  On Christmas morning, he slipped out of bed, and managed to get his clothes on, while alone, and was met outside his own door, bent on giving a Christmas greeting to everybody in the house.  He was indulged in this; for it was of little consequence now what he did.  He appeared at each bedside, and at every sofa,—­and not with any moving sentiment, but with genuine gayety.  It was full in his thoughts that he had not many days to live, but he hoped the others had; and he entered into their prospect of renewed health and activity.  At night they said that Patrick had brightened their Christmas Day.

He died very soon after,—­sinking at last with perfect consciousness,—­writing messages to me on his slate while his fingers would hold the pencil,—­calm and cheerful without intermission.  After his death, when the last offices were to be begun, my letters were taken warm from his breast.  Every line that I had ever written to him was there; and the packet was sent to me by Doctor H—­bound round with the green ribbon which he had himself tied before he quite lost the power.  The kind friends who had watched over him during the months of his London life wrote to me not to trouble myself about his funeral.  They buried him honorably, and two of his distinguished friends followed him to the grave.