She hurried, with a lighted wax candle, and with feathers, to burn under the nose of her young mistress; which showed that she continued in fits.

Mr. Hickman, afterwards, with his usual humanity, directed that Harry should be taken care of all night; it being then the close of day.  He asked him after my health.  He expressed himself excessively afflicted, as well for the death of the most excellent of women, as for the just grief of the lady whom he so passionately loves.  But he called the departed lady an Angel of Light.  We dreaded, said he, (tell your master,) to read the letter sent—­but we needed not—­’tis a blessed letter! written by a blessed hand!—­But the consolation she aims to give, will for the present heighten the sense we all shall have of the loss of so excellent a creature!  Tell Mr. Belford, that I thank God I am not the man who had the unmerited honour to call himself her brother.

I know how terribly this great catastrophe (as I may call it, since so many persons are interested in it) affects thee.  I should have been glad to have had particulars of the distress which the first communication of it must have given to the Harlowes.  Yet who but must pity the unhappy mother?

The answer which James Harlowe returned to Colonel Morden’s letter of notification of his sister’s death, and to her request as to her interment, will give a faint idea of what their concern must be.  Here follows a copy of it: 

TO WILLIAM MORDEN, ESQ.  SATURDAY, SEPT. 9.

DEAR COUSIN,

I cannot find words to express what we all suffer on the most mournful news that ever was communicated to us.

My sister Arabella (but, alas!  I have now no other sister) was preparing to follow Mrs. Norton up, and I had resolved to escort her, and to have looked in upon the dear creature.

God be merciful to us all!  To what purpose did the doctor write, if she was so near her end?—­Why, as every body says, did he not send sooner?—­ Or, Why at all?

The most admirable young creature that ever swerved!  Not one friend to be with her!—­Alas!  Sir, I fear my mother will never get over this shock.  —­She has been in hourly fits ever since she received the fatal news.  My poor father has the gout thrown into his stomach; and Heaven knows—­O Cousin!—­O Sir!—­I meant nothing but the honour of the family; yet have I all the weight thrown upon me—­[O this cursed Lovelace!—­may I perish if he escape the deserved vengeance!]*

* The words thus enclosed [] were omitted in the transcript to Mr. Lovelace.

We had begun to please ourselves that we should soon see her here—­Good Heaven! that her next entrance into this house, after she abandoned us so precipitately, should be in a coffin.