Die at his Post

than lay down the reins of office while the people of the country and the men of his Party desired that he should retain them.

His colleagues urged him to remain away still longer and give himself a further chance; but ho was anxious to be about the work of preparing for the session, and after a short time he came down to Wellington and presided over various Cabinet meetings held at his own house, showing mental grasp and vigour strangely out of keeping with his physical weakness. Prom all his departments at this time were coining anticipations of a surplus, soon to be realised, and when on Easter Saturday he asked me to come up and see him, he was pardonably proud of the results which were then assured. But how changed was the man in the short space of a few weeks! His intellect was as bright as ever, and his greeting as cordial, but he had fallen away until what had been sturdy limbs could now have been spanned by the hand. The idea of a sea voyage possessed him, and after talking of his surplus, comparing figures, filling in details of departments—which, it being a holiday, I had brought him—and finally reckoning up the substantial whole, ho spoke with eagerness of a trip he promised himself in the Hinemoa. But he had taken remedial measures too late. Even as he expressed to me his confidence in his ultimate recovery, I felt that