‘I am not poorly, though I look thin; I think that I am stronger in health and firmer in spirit now than I have been almost all this trying year; and for this I am thankful.’
TO MISS ‘LEILA’ HAMILTON.
‘Nov. 2, 1866.
‘Your sweet Mother will wonder at not receiving the little book which I promised to send her; but our bookseller, from whom I ordered the copy, has been unable to get it yet. I will tell you something that may cause delay. Of course I looked with some interest at the illustrations which my Publisher sent me; but I was not a little surprised in the last one to find one whom I considered to be a man represented as a bear! He was bearish in character certainly, but still—certainly not a bear in shape.
‘Of course I wrote to Mr. Inglis about it; who replied that he had been annoyed himself at the resemblance to a bear, and had sent the picture more than once to be altered, and had been at last so much provoked that he had paid off the artist altogether. Now, though I may be a little sorry for the poor man,—I never proposed his dismissal,—I confess I am rather glad that he is not to illustrate my books any more. There is no saying what creature he might turn my characters into next. Mr. Inglis is going to have the picture altered; so this may occasion delay.’
CHAPTER XI
A.D. 1867-1868
GIVING COMFORT TO OTHERS
Three more years only remained to Charlotte of life in the dear old home of her infancy. Those three years passed quietly, marked by no stirring events. On the 11th of December 1867, Otho St. George Hamilton, son of her sister Laura, died at the age of thirteen, after a long illness; and during these years Fanny continued steadily to fail. The delicacy developed into a case of decided consumption, but of a slow and lingering description. A few sentences are culled from the many letters which remain, belonging to this period.
TO MISS ‘LEILA’ HAMILTON.