, requesting her to inform him of the state of things in that family, as far as she thought proper;

and, particularly, of the health of that dear friend, on whose silence to three Letters he had written, he had the most melancholy apprehensions. He let that Lady know, that he should set out in a very few days for Paris, if he had no probability of being of service to the family she favoured with her company.
To this Letter Mrs. Beaumont returned the following answer:
SIR,
I Have the favour of yours. We are very miserable here. The servants are forbidden to answer any enquiries, but generally; and that not truly.
Your friend, Signor Jeronymo, has gone through a severe operation. He has been given over; but hopes are now entertained, not of his absolute recovery, but that he will be no worse than he was before the necessity for the operation arose. Poor man! He forgot not, however, his sister and you, when he was out of the power of the opiates that were adminstred to him.
On my coming hither, I found Lady Clementina in a deplorable way: Sometimes raving, sometimes gloomy; and in bonds—Twice had she given them apprehensions of fatal attempts: They therefore confined her hands.
They have been excessively wrong in their management of her: Now soothing, now severe; observing no method.
She was extremely earnest to see you before you lest Bologna. On her knees repeatedly she besought this favour, and promised to be easy if they would comply; but they imagined that their compliance would aggravate the symptoms.
I very freely blamed them for not complying, at the time when she was so desirous of seeing you. I told them, that soothing her would probably then have done good.

When they knew you were actually gone from Bologna, they told her so. Camilla shocked me with the description of her rage and despair, on the communication. This was followed by fits of silence, and the deepest melancholy.
They had hopes, on my arrival, that my company would have been of service to her: But for two days together she regarded me not, nor any-thing I could say to her. On the third of my arrival, finding her confinement extremely uneasy to her, I prevailed, but with great difficulty, to have her restored to the use of her hands; and to be allowed to walk with me in the garden. They had hinted to me their apprehensions about a piece of water.
Her woman being near us, if there had been occasion for
