Frank went up stairs; but did not return. A full hour was consumed in anxious waiting. She then saw Mr. Langton pass the parlour door, which she watchfully kept open, and ascend the stairs. She had not courage to stop or speak to him, and another hour lingered on in the same suspense.
But, at about four o’clock, Mr. Langton made his appearance in the parlour.
She took it for granted he came accidentally, but observed that, though he bowed, he forbore to speak; or even to look at her, and seemed in much disturbance.
Extremely alarmed, she durst not venture at any question; but Mrs. Davis,[1] who was there, uneasily asked, “How is Dr. Johnson now, Sir?”
“Going on to death very fast!” was the mournful reply.
The Memorialist, grievously shocked and overset by so hopeless a sentence, after an invitation so sprightly of only the preceding evening from the dying man himself, turned to the window to recover from so painful a disappointment.
“Has he taken any thing, Sir?” said Mrs. Davis.
“Nothing at all! We carried him some bread and milk; he refused it, and said, ‘The less the better!’”
Mrs. Davis then asked sundry other questions, from the answers to which it fully appeared that his faculties were perfect, and that his mind was quite composed.
This conversation lasted about a quarter of an hour, before the Memorialist had any suspicion that