A. CIRCOURT.
The Journal gives the chronicle of the last weeks of the year:—
November 22nd.—Visit to Chatsworth. Delane died. 23rd.—Chatsworth. Long talk with Lord Hartington.
29th.—Delane's funeral at Easthampstead. Went down with Barlow and Stebbing; then across by Woking to Lithe Hill (Haslemere); very cold.
At Christmas severe illness came on—gout and violent bleeding of the nose.
I was totally laid up for two months.
The year had been a sad one, and had marked its progress by the death of many of Reeve's dearest and oldest friends—Lady Blackett (to whom he had always been tenderly attached), Longman, Circourt, and Delane.
CHAPTER XX
OUTRAGE AND DISLOYALTY
The very serious illness which ushered in the year 1880, and which confined Reeve to his room till near the end of January, formed a very important era in his life. Though it passed away, so that, after a fortnight at Brighton, he was able, by the middle of February, to attend to his official duties at the Council Office, the bad effects remained. He was no longer a young man, but he had carried his years well. He had travelled, he had occasionally shot, and always with a keen sense of enjoyment. Now, the full weight of his age told at once. His illness left him ten years older; unable to undergo the fatigue of field sports, and feeling that of travel sometimes irksome.
And Foxholes afforded him a tempting excuse. From this time, instead of going for his holiday to Scotland, to France, or to Geneva, it seemed so much easier to go to Foxholes, so much more comfortable to spend it there. And for the next fifteen years a large part of his time was passed at Foxholes, where, in the most delightful climate known in this country, surrounded by beautiful scenery and with a commanding view of the sea, amid the comforts of home and in the company of his books and his chosen friends, he could say, from both the material and moral point of view: