I was very pleased with it and the people were too.

I am entertained by Baron and Baroness Van der Velts.

The lady speaks English very nicely, and they are evidently very pleased to have me with them.
"I was glad to settle to sleep about eleven, and thankful for the mercies of the day." It was thus that nearly three years passed away.

Then came at last the time when the long-hoped-for operation was to take place.
Rookstone, the house in Hadley Wood, a village on the northern outskirts of London, where The General died, stands almost at the foot of the garden of the present General, so that they could be constantly in touch when at home, and the General's grandchildren greatly enjoyed his love for them.
But in the large three-windowed room, where his left eye was operated upon, and where a few months later he died, his Successor, his youngest daughter, Commissioner Howard, and his Private Secretary, Colonel Kitching, had many valued interviews with him during those last months.
I had not that opportunity until it was too late to speak to him, for he had said when it was suggested, full as he had been of the hope of prolonged life almost to the end, "Oh, yes, he'll want to come and get something for my life and that will just finish me." Of the operaton itself we prefer to let the physician himself speak in the following extract from _The Lancet_ of the 19th October, 1912: "...He was not in very good health in March, 1910; he had occasional giddy attacks and lapses of memory, and from April till June of the same year he had albuminuria, from which, however, he appeared entirely to recover.

The vision of his left eye became gradually worse, but I encouraged him to go on without operation as long as he could.