Page:Memoir and correspondence of Caroline Herschel (1876).djvu/147

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
Chap. IV.]
Extracts from Diary.
123

very carefully kept to myself, as I wished to be useful to my brother as long as possibly I could. . . . .

Feb. 7th.—I was obliged to move to a small cottage in Slough, at a considerable distance from my brother. I began to move, and slept there for the first night, the 22nd.

April 1st.—My brother went to Bath to see his brother and Sir William Watson. His cough still very bad, and the 12th, when he came home, we learned that he had been taken very ill on the road and suffered much when at Bath. It was not till many weeks after, when the warm weather came on, that he felt relieved. A few days after his return from Bath, we received notice by a message from the Queen of the Duchess of Oldenburg's intention of coming to see my brother's instruments. Everything was put in readiness for either a morning or evening visit, but the weather being very bad, the visit was put off till the arrival of the Emperor.

May 4th.—I went to be with my brother. Mr. H. and Miss B. went to meet my nephew in town, who was keeping a term in the Temple, where he had commenced to be a student for the law in February. *****

June 10th.—My brother, being about this time engaged with re-polishing the forty-foot mirror, it required some time to restore order in his rooms before any strangers could be shown into them, and I again was assisting him to prepare for the reception of the Emperor Alexander and the Duchess of Oldenburg, &c., as they were at Windsor for Ascot Races. But we might have saved ourselves the trouble, for they were sufficiently harassed with public sights and festivities. *****

Sept. 13th.—During the time I was with my brother I saw among the visitors, &c., General P., who informed us of General Komarzewsky's death, and on my expressing a