me some weeks ago that the Times contained the same report, to which I replied, 'It is a lie!' but what I heard from Dr. Tias to-day makes me almost believe it possible. Ja! if I was thirty or forty years younger, and could go too? In Gottes nahmen! But I will not think about it till you yourself tell me more of it, for I have enough to think of my cramps, blindness, sleepless nights, etc." She was a wonderful "little old woman." Pointed at on the street, honoured by the Palace, and saluted with profoundest respect at theatre or concert, she wrote, "Next to listening to the conversation of learned men, I like to hear about them, but I find myself, unfortunately, among beings who like nothing but smoking, big talk on politics, wars and such like things." Her indignation flamed up as fiercely when she was ninety years of age as it used to do when she was twenty, especially at anyone who took her for what she was not, weak of will or understanding. "Thank God, I have yet sense enough left to caution you against being imposed upon by a stupid being, who would make you believe I died under obligations to any of the family. I know he has already, without asking my leave, passed himself off for my guardian, and is vexed at my being able to do without him. But I could not live without that little business of keeping my accounts; and by my last book of expenses and receipts may be seen, that I owe nothing to any body, but to my dear nephew many many thanks for fulfilling his father's wishes, by paying for so many years the ample annuity he left me." What a brave little old woman she was! Nobody but herself was at liberty to call her "an old poor sick creature in her dotage."
