CHAPTER LXIV.
The kind neighbour, on returning from the constant morning visit, found her husband earnestly occupied in reading the following letter.
"My dear Sir—I am not able to leave my invalid an hour, though I have contrived to bring him and my dear old friends to Bath (as you will perceive by the date); and I can also assert, that he is much better, and looking almost himself again, nor can there be any doubt that he has regained some strength, and is devoid of all actual complaint; still, he is no more like Arthur than I to Hercules—he sits silent for hours together, as if he were on board his ship, and calculating how long she would last; and when he begins to talk, it is only of the good captain he loved so dearly, and whom he buried so honourably at Corunna, or of one or other of the poor fellows who died during his disastrous voyage—it seems as if his whole mind and memory were converted to a log-book registration of their expiring sighs, and as if he thought
