The Sun.
London, England, 1867-01-04 00:00:00

which she was entitled. The life was pre-eminently
good, and the proposal was accepted. On the 20th
of April. Mrs. Wainewright and Miss Abercrombie
went to the office to pay the first year's premium,
and receive the policy. Ou or about the same day,

a similar insurance fur three thousand pounds, but
this for two years only, was effected with the Eagle

Insurance Office, and the premium for one year and
the stamp duty duly paid by Miss Abercrombie in

her young sister's presence.
In the following October four more policies were
effected : with the Provident for one thousand

pounds, with the Hope for two thousand pounds,
with the Imperial for three thousand pounds, and
with the Pelican for the largest amount usually per-

mitted—namely, five thousand pounds—each-for
the period of two years; making altogether incur•

antes to the amount of eighteen thousand pounds.
The premiums paid,together with thestamps,amount-
ed to more than two hundred and twenty pounds; and

yet, in case of bliss Abercrombie living more th an
three years, all these payments would be lost.

Lost, they would be, who could doubt. The ac-
.uary at the Provident described her as " a remark-

ably healthy, cheerful, beautiful young woman,
whose life was one of a thousand." Old secretaries,

smiling over their spectacles, must have felt as if a
sunbeam had glanced across the room, and have
sighed to think that if a full insurance had been

effected fifty years hence, that same Miss Aber-

crombie might cuter the room still hearty and
vigorous to pay her annual interest, when they were
long ago gone, and their very tombstones were
effaced by rain and wind.

Still all this insuring was odd, too, for Mr.
Wainewright was deeply in debt. Shabby, trucu-
lent men behind grated doors in Cursitor-street

were speaking irreverently of him ; dirty Jew-faced
men at the bar of the Hole-in-the-Wall in Chan-

cery-lanc discussed him, and were eager to claw his
shoulder. He spent more than ever, and earned
lees. His literary friends, Lamb and Reynolds,
seldom saw him now. His artist friends, Fuseli the
fiery and Stothard the gentle, Westall and Lawrence,
_ _

seldom met him. A crisis was coming to the man
with elegant tastes. In August ho had given a
warrant of attorney and a bill of sale of his furni-
ture at Linden House ; both of these had become
absolute, and seizure was impending. « The Jew
fellows" could only be scared away (from the ele-
gant gilt lamp, the books, and prints) till the 20th
or 21st of December.

Early in that month Wainewright left the house
with the leaf-stripped trees, the very unhealthy
house, and took furnished lodgings at Mr. Nicoll's,
a tailor, in Conduit-street, to which he went accom-
panied by his wife, his child, and those two beautiful
affectionate girls, his half-sisters, Phoebe and Made-
leine Abercrombie. Books, sabre, elegant French
lamp, portfolios, and desk with the mysterious little
eccentric drawer with the especial salt for filberts.
There was still a little more law business for
Phoebe ; the artistic mind remarked one morning in
his playful, delightful way, " Would the dear girl
be kind enough to keep in profile for one moment ?
Exquisite! Yes, there was a will to be made to
benefit dear Madeleine in case of any unforeseen
circumstance." Phoebe no doubt carolled out a
laugh, and • expressed a horror " of those dusty old
lawyers." On that same day, the 13th, Miss Aber-
crombie called on a solicitor named Lys, to whom
she was a stranger, to attest the execution of a will
she desired to make, as she was going abroad ; he
complied, and she executed a will in favour of her
sister Madeleine, making Mr. Wainewright its exe-
cutor.
That same evening (as a reward, perhaps) the
two sisters went to the play, as they had done the
evening before, accompanying their kind relations,
Mr. and Mrs. Wainewright. Whatever bailiffs may
be watching the gay ar.d volatile creature in the
befrogged coat, he has no idea of stinting his amuse-
ments. Providence is hard on your delightful and
fashionable men, who earn little and spend much.
The play is delightful, the pathos pierces, the
farce convulses the pleasant party of four. After
the play they have an oyster supper, and Mr. Waine-
wright is gayer and wittier than ever. Iu the night,
however, Miss Phoebe is taken ill, evidently having
caught cold from walking home that long way from
Drury-lane or Covent-garden two nights in the wet
and wind. There is great regret in the house, and
frequent kind inquiries at her door from Mr. Waine-
wright. She gets up to dinner, but in a day or two,
the cold not lifting, Dr. Locock is sent for. Mrs.
Wainewright and Madeleine are with her constantly.
Mr. Wainewright, who is clever in these things, as
in everything else, prescribes her a black draught
before the doctor is sent for. The doctor is kind
and sympathising, thinks little of the slight derange-
ment, and prescribes the simplest remedies. On the
seventh day of her indisposition, Mr. Wainewright,
impatient of the doctor's reine lies, prescribed her a
powder, which she took willingly iu jelly. She was
decidedly better, and was no longer wandering ; she
was so much better, in fact, that Mr. Waiuewright,
great in spirits, and full of sentiment, sympathy, and
artistic feding, told his wife to put on her bonnet
and come for a walk sketching, while dear Phoebe
had some sleep. That was about twelve o'clock.
At two Phoebe was taken violently ill with convul-
sions. She appeared in great agony, became deli-
rious, and struggled violently. Dr. Locock, who
had becu previously consulted about insurance cer-
tificates, was instantly sent for, and came. The tit
had then subsided, but there was pressure on the
brain. She said, " Oh, doctor, lam dying. These
are the pains of death. I feel I am. lam sure
so!" The doctor said, " You'll be better by and
by." She cried, "My poor mother; oh, my poor
mother !" Dr. Locock left, and she had a fit, and
grasped the hand of one of the servants. When Dr.
Locock left she lay quiet, and said she thought she
heard a little boy coming along the room, and that
he ought not to be there, and she burst into' tears
and convulsions.
A servant who had lived twenty years with Dr.
Griffiths, and had known Mr. Wainewright since he
was a child, instantly sent for Messrs. King and
Nicholson, apothecaries. A Mr. Hanks came and
saw Miss Abercrombie in the convulsion fit. She
had said to De. Locock, " Doctor, I was gone to
heaven, but you have brought me back to earth."
Hanks gave her some medicine while Dr. Locock
was there. The convulsions got better, and the
doctors wont as.v2y. Soon after they were gone,
the convulsions came on again, and at four o'clock
she died.
Who can paint the horror and agony of Mr. and
Mrs. Wainewright when they returned and found
the beautiful girl, with the exquisite profile, only a
day or two ago so bright and full of life, so arch,
so graceful—dcad.
Unchristian suspicions soon arose, degrading, as
Mr. Weinewright remarked, only to those who en-
tertained them. Exasperated by the loss which, by
the dear girl's distressing death, they had incurred,
all the insurance offices meanly and criminally re-
fused payment, The crisis came, butWainewright
was too poor to stay and press his legal claims, and
therefore stealthily retired to the friendly asylum of
France, where urbanity always reigns, and claret is
delightfully cheap ; where the air is ever sunny, and
meat is lean, but not dear. He there resided, gay as
ever for several years.
After many delays, occasioned chiefly by pro-
ceedings in equity, the question of the vali-
dity of the policies was tried in the Court of
Exchequer, before Lord Abiuger, on the 29th of
June, 1835, in an action by Mr. Wainewright, as
the executor of Aliss Abercrombie, on the Imperial
policy of three thousand pounds.
Sir William Follett appeared for the plaintiff, and
the Attorney-General. Sir F. Pollock, and Mr.
Thesiger for the defendant. The real plaintiff was
got Mr.Wainewright, but Mr. Wheatley, a respect-
able bookseller, who had married the sister of the
deceased. The jury, partaking of the jtvige's dis-
inclination to attribute the most dreadful
guilt to
a plaintiff on a nisi prius record, and, perhaps,
scarcely perceiving how they could discover for the
imputed fraud au intelligible motive without it,
were unable to agree, and were discharged without
giving a verdict. It was clear to every one there
had been foul play. The cause was tried again,
before the same judge, on the 3d of December fol-
lowing, when the counsel for the defence, following
the obvious inclination of the bench, avoided the
fearful charge, and obtained a verdict for the office