the breathing after the least exertion is a rapid pant; and these
symptoms are accompanied by pains in the chest and side. Her
pulse, the only time she allowed it be to felt, was found to beat
115 per minute. In this state she resolutely refuses to see a
doctor; she will give no explanation of her feelings, she will
scarcely allow her feelings to be alluded to. Our position is,
and has been for some weeks, exquisitely painful. God only knows
how all this is to terminate. More than once, I have been forced
boldly to regard the terrible event of her loss as possible, and
even probable. But nature shrinks from such thoughts. I think
Emily seems the nearest thing to my heart in the world."

When a doctor had been sent for, and was in the very house, Emily
refused to see him. Her sisters could only describe to him what
symptoms they had observed; and the medicines which he sent she
would not take, denying that she was ill.

"Dec. 10th, 1848.

"I hardly know what to say to you about the subject which now
interests me the most keenly of anything in this world, for, in
truth, I hardly know what to think myself. Hope and fear
fluctuate daily. The pain in her side and chest is better; the
cough, the shortness of breath, the extreme emaciation continue.
I have endured, however, such tortures of uncertainty on this
subject that, at length, I could endure it no longer; and as her
repugnance to seeing a medical man continues immutable,--as she
declares 'no poisoning doctor' shall come near her,--I have
written unknown to her, to an eminent physician in London, giving
as minute a statement of her case and symptoms as I could draw