when I think that she does not know the worst, but she soon must; and then she will not complain; but I shall sit guessing at all that she is dwelling upon, of famine and misery—­I feel as if my heart must break, and I do not know what I say or do; my mother—­mother for whom I have borne much, God preserve you from this fate!  Preserve her, Lady, and He will bless you; and I, poor miserable creature as I am, will thank you and pray for you while I live.

“Your unhappy and dutiful servant,

“Dec. 30th, 2097.  Lucy Martin.”

This letter deeply affected Idris, and she instantly proposed, that we should return to Datchet, to assist Lucy and her mother.  I said that I would without delay set out for that place, but entreated her to join her brother, and there await my return with the children.  But Idris was in high spirits, and full of hope.  She declared that she could not consent even to a temporary separation from me, but that there was no need of this, the motion of the carriage did her good, and the distance was too trifling to be considered.  We could dispatch messengers to Adrian, to inform him of our deviation from the original plan.  She spoke with vivacity, and drew a picture after her own dear heart, of the pleasure we should bestow upon Lucy, and declared, if I went, she must accompany me, and that she should very much dislike to entrust the charge of rescuing them to others, who might fulfil it with coldness or inhumanity.  Lucy’s life had been one act of devotion and virtue; let her now reap the small reward of finding her excellence appreciated, and her necessity assisted, by those whom she respected and honoured.

These, and many other arguments, were urged with gentle pertinacity, and the ardour of a wish to do all the good in her power, by her whose simple expression of a desire and slightest request had ever been a law with me.  I, of course, consented, the moment that I saw that she had set her heart upon this step.  We sent half our attendant troop on to Adrian; and with the other half our carriage took a retrograde course back to Windsor.

I wonder now how I could be so blind and senseless, as thus to risk the safety of Idris; for, if I had eyes, surely I could see the sure, though deceitful, advance of death in her burning cheek and encreasing weakness.  But she said she was better; and I believed her.  Extinction could not be near a being, whose vivacity and intelligence hourly encreased, and whose frame was endowed with an intense, and I fondly thought, a strong and permanent spirit of life.  Who, after a great disaster, has not looked back with wonder at his inconceivable obtuseness of understanding, that could not perceive the many minute threads with which fate weaves the inextricable net of our destinies, until he is inmeshed completely in it?