Read it through once

It is quite evident from the few records of the years 1838, 1839 and on, that Dr. Mitford’s increasing age rendered him more and more querulous and exacting in his demands upon his daughter for attention and creature comforts. “He could read, I think,” she wrote in 1840, “but somehow to read to himself seems to give him no pleasure; and if any one else is so kind as to offer to read to him, _that_ does not do. They don’t know what he likes, and where to skip, and how to lighten heavy parts without losing the thread of the story. By practice I can contrive to do this, even with books that I have never seen before. There’s an instinct in it, I think.” Fortunately the year was brightened by a reconciliation with Talfourd, but then it was saddened by the suicide of Haydon, who, embittered with the world and largely in debt, sought relief in this terrible fashion. And for Miss Mitford the tragedy was heightened by the fact that, only the week before, he had visited the cottage and left a few valuables “in her charge,” as he said, “for a short while.” Following this came news, in the summer, from Miss Barrett at Torquay, who had just sustained a tragic bereavement by the death, from drowning, of her brother Edward. He had gone out with a friend, sailing in the Bay of which the sister had a magnificent and extensive view from her windows in the Beacon Terrace.[28] Delightedly watching the little vessel, she was suddenly alarmed by noticing that the occupants appeared to be in difficulties. A sudden squall had arisen, and while the agonized sister watched, impotent, from her invalid-chair, the boat capsized and her brother and his friend both perished.