ing at a very near distance.1 Isabella, the one whose future was perhaps the least assured, was idolised at home and admired abroad, and entered into the successes of the others with the most cordial and unselfish affection; and, strange to say, for that one summer Bob himself showed steadiness and an inclination to work. To complete the family picture, we must not omit the parents, both of whom were scarcely past the prime of life; Lady Elliot, being not much above forty, looked, as we are told by her daughter, "ten years younger, and very handsome;" and both she and Sir Gilbert might with reason anticipate a long possession in the future of their prosperous lot, influential in politics, popular in society, and happy at home. At this moment of their lives, at all events, they seem to have been conscious that "the lines were cast to them in pleasant places."

The family correspondence proves this. "What joy," writes Lady Elliot, "to have your father and all the six with me again! . . . We shall revisit the old places. Your old school-room still exists." Alick writes:-" I have visited the mill, and the rivulet, and the Thames, the spots where we first learned to love each other, and now only you are wanting to make us perfectly happy." And Hugh, writing of the anticipated meeting at Twickenham, says: "What family can be happier than ours is now, all meeting again happy and prosperous, and loving each other as well as of old?"

The meeting took place in the month of September,

'She was married in September 1776.

and was followed by a few brief days of happiness; but even during these a speck was in the sky. Sir Gilbert had returned from his son's election, and from a hasty visit to Minto, with a neglected cold and cough. Hectic symptoms rapidly appeared. Soon after the meeting of Parliament, he found himself unable to attend the House of Commons. A change of climate was ordered by the physicians; and early in November he was on his way to Nice, with Lady Elliot and Isabella, and under the especial charge of Hugh.

A letter from Gilbert, dated Lincoln's Inn, 19th November 1776, well describes the sympathy which Sir Gilbert's illness had excited among his friends.

"The warmth, and I really believe the sincerity, with which almost everybody I meet receives the account of your journey and its success, is affecting, particularly in the House of Commons, where he is truly missed by every man who has the least soul, and who knew the part he used to fill there.

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Perhaps his absence, by withdrawing him from all those little competitions which warp vulgar, and I am afraid, even superior minds, may have made the universal concern for his situation more sincere than was expected in that callous scene. But whatever the reason is, it is certainly so; and to me is a subject of the most sensible and touching pleasure I now experience, and yet it makes me melancholy. To find nothing but an affectionate remembrance of one who used to be so principal when present there, is a change that makes one feel, and makes one think a little of what all this is that we are busy about."

Hugh accompanied his family as far as Avignon ; there he was relieved in his melancholy duties by his brother Alick; and, apparently on account of matters connected with his recent appointment to Berlin, he returned to England, after a parting so sad and painful, that Sir Gilbert is described as frequently recurring to it, saying, with a sigh, "Poor, poor Hugh! how unhappy he was to leave us."

And far bitterer still that parting would have been, could a glance into the future have revealed to him that not only of his father, but of mother and brother1 he was taking a last farewell; and that when he should see his favourite sister again, his chosen and cheerful companion, there would be " upon her face the tint of grief, the settled shadow of an inward strife," and even he, her best and dearest, would have no power to bring relief to "that which preyed upon her mind, a spectre of the past!"

1 Alick did not return to England till after his brother's departure for Berlin in the spring of 1777, and early in the summer of the same year he went out to India, where he died in 1778.

H

CHAPTER THE THIRD.

1777.

BERLIN.

THE month of January 1777 was marked by two such events as make epochs in the history of every familythe death of the head of the family, and the marriage of him destined to fill the vacant place; by the one event two generations change places, by the other the foundation of a new family is laid, which may or may not link the past to future hopes.

The nature of the change which had taken place is significantly marked in this correspondence. Hitherto the brothers had written to each other on personal topics chiefly; from the parents came more general information, and sometimes counsel, remonstrance, and reproof; henceforth Lady Elliot's letters will be but few, and those few will relate to matters of a purely domestic character, to her health, her sorrows, and her altered circumstances; while the letters of her eldest son become, and continue, the most valuable portion of the correspondence.

The new Sir Gilbert was well fitted to take the chief place in the family.

Less ambitious and less laborious than his father, less brilliant and enthusiastic than his mother, without his brother's handsome person and lively manners, his were the gifts which need only to be known to gain for their possessor love and honour, and "troops of friends." From his earliest years he seems to have inspired his family with the most entire reliance on his character and conduct, and also on his tenderness and indulgence to those less free than himself from reproach.

When young he accused himself of indolence, and in after years his wife took up the tale; but whatever more he might have done, he did live to fill high situations with honour, and to be distinguished among the band of eminent men who during many years opposed at once the encroachments of the Crown at home, and the influx of Jacobinical principles from abroad.

From his wife1 there are but few letters among my grandfather's correspondence, these, however, are easily and pleasantly written; and we know that she was a woman of strong character and of warm heart, with looks and manners which betrayed her southern origin, an ancestor of her father, Sir George Amyand, having been a Huguenot refugee."

1 Anna Maria Amyand, eldest daughter of Sir G. Amyand. She and her sister Harriet had been brought up by Lady Northampton, wife of their uncle Mr. Amyand.

The family of Amyand came originally from the south of France. Lady Elliot's eldest brother changed his name to that of Cornewall on his marriage with an heiress, Miss Velters Cornewall, of Moccas Court, Herefordshire. He was the father of Lady Hereford, of Lady Duff Gordon, of Mrs. Frankland Lewis, and of other children.