An account

March 24th, 1885. I was with her at Malvern Wells at the time, in some lodgings that we hired for a few weeks ; and Father Hewitt was then at Woolton, a village in Warwickshire, my aunt and Mr. Dering renting Woolton Hall that year. I cannot give you the exact date, but I remember that it was one day in Easter week of that year (1869). I was in the drawing-room of those lodgings after luncheon, about a quarter past 2 o'clock, when my aunt came downstairs from her bedroom and told me that she was quite sure Father Hewitt was dead for she had seen him, &c. We all knew that he was ill of one of his usual severe attacks of gall-stones, but that complaint is not considered a fatal one, and so we were full of hopes that we should find him better on our return home. He was one of the best and dearest of our friends, and his death, corroborated the next morning by hearing his name given out at Mass,2 to be prayed for among the dead, was a heavy blow to us all. We afterwards heard that he had died at 2 o'clock on the day my aunt saw him.