CHAPTER XVII.
I have thought that it might be more convenient to the reader to have the letters contained in the foregoing chapter all together, and have not interrupted them therefore to speak of any of the events which were meantime happening in my own life.
But during the period which the letters cover the two greatest sorrows of my life had fallen upon me--I had lost first my mother, then my wife.
The bereavement, however, was very different in the two cases.

If my mother had died a dozen years earlier I should have felt the loss as the end of all things to me--as leaving me desolate and causing a void which nothing could ever fill.

But when she died at eighty-three she had lived her life, upon the whole a very happy one, to the happiness of which I had (and have) the satisfaction of believing I largely contributed.
It is very common for a mother and daughter to live during many years of life together in as close companionship as I lived with my mother, but it is not common for a son to do so.

During many years, and many, many journeyings, and more _tete-a-tete_ walks, and yet more of _tete-a-tete_ home hours, we were inseparable companions and friends.
I can truly say that, from the time when we put our horses together on my return from Birmingham to the time of my marriage, she was all in all to me! During some four or five days in the early time of our residence at Florence I thought I was going to lose her, and I can never forget the blank wretchedness of the prospect that seemed to be before me.
She had a very serious illness, and was, as I had subsequently reason to believe, very mistakenly treated.

She was attended by a practitioner of the old school, who had at that time the leading practice in Florence.