the keen teeth of a trap.--"At last you are come!" were the words given

forth--but this exertion was the last effort of the dying--the joints

relaxed, the figure fell prostrate, one low moan, the last, marked the

moment of death. Morning broke; and the old woman saw the corpse, marked

with the fatal disease, close to her; her wrist was livid with the hold

loosened by death. She felt struck by the plague; her aged frame was unable

to bear her away with sufficient speed; and now, believing herself

infected, she no longer dreaded the association of others; but, as swiftly

as she might, came to her grand-daughter, at Windsor Castle, there to

lament and die. The sight was horrible; still she clung to life, and

lamented her mischance with cries and hideous groans; while the swift

advance of the disease shewed, what proved to be the fact, that she could

not survive many hours.

While I was directing that the necessary care should be taken of her, Clara

came in; she was trembling and pale; and, when I anxiously asked her the

cause of her agitation, she threw herself into my arms weeping and

exclaiming--"Uncle, dearest uncle, do not hate me for ever! I must tell

you, for you must know, that Evelyn, poor little Evelyn"--her voice was

choked by sobs. The fear of so mighty a calamity as the loss of our adored

infant made the current of my blood pause with chilly horror; but the

remembrance of the mother restored my presence of mind. I sought the little

bed of my darling; he was oppressed by fever; but I trusted, I fondly and

fearfully trusted, that there were no symptoms of the plague. He was not

three years old, and his illness appeared only one of those attacks

incident to infancy. I watched him long--his heavy half-closed lids, his

379

The Last Man