Page:Memoirs of the Lady Hester Stanhope.djvu/209

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
LADY HESTER STANHOPE..
195

and, not having obtained it, had toadied Addington, and got it. I thought it so mean of him, after the numberless favours he had received from Mr. Pitt, to go over to Addington, that I was determined to pay him off. So, when I was close to him, looking down at the garter round his leg, I said—'What's that you have got there, my lord?' and before he could answer, I continued—'I suppose it's a bandage for your broken legs:' for Lord Abercorn had once had both his legs broken, and the remark applied doubly, inasmuch as it hit hard on Addington's father's profession. Lord Abercorn never forgot this: he and I had been very great friends; but he never liked me afterwards."

Tuesday, January 23, 1838.—I found Lady Hester to-day out of bed, seated on the ottoman. She wished me to talk or to read to her, so that she might not be forced to speak herself; but her cough, which was incessant, precluded the possibility of doing either. The accumulation of phlegm in her chest made her restless to a painful degree. Shortly afterwards, her spasms began, which caused her arms and sometimes her head to be thrown from side to side with jerks. Her irritability was excessive. Without consulting me, she had been bled the preceding night by a Turkish barber. Her conversation the day before had turned in a general manner on bleeding; and having ascertained my opinion that bleeding would not