_18 September._
My dearest Lucy,--
Such a sad blow has befallen us. Mr. Hawkins has died very suddenly.
Some may not think it so sad for us, but we had both come to so love him
that it really seems as though we had lost a father. I never knew either
father or mother, so that the dear old man s death is a real blow to me.
Jonathan is greatly distressed. It is not only that he feels sorrow,
deep sorrow, for the dear, good man who has befriended him all his life,
and now at the end has treated him like his own son and left him a
fortune which to people of our modest bringing up is wealth beyond the
dream of avarice, but Jonathan feels it on another account. He says the
amount of responsibility which it puts upon him makes him nervous. He
begins to doubt himself. I try to cheer him up, and _my_ belief in _him_
helps him to have a belief in himself. But it is here that the grave
shock that he experienced tells upon him the most. Oh, it is too hard
that a sweet, simple, noble, strong nature such as his--a nature which
enabled him by our dear, good friend s aid to rise from clerk to master
in a few years--should be so injured that the very essence of its
strength is gone. Forgive me, dear, if I worry you with my troubles in
the midst of your own happiness; but, Lucy dear, I must tell some one,
for the strain of keeping up a brave and cheerful appearance to Jonathan
tries me, and I have no one here that I can confide in. I dread coming
up to London, as we must do the day after to-morrow; for poor Mr.
Hawkins left in his will that he was to be buried in the grave with his
father. As there are no relations at all, Jonathan will have to be chief
mourner. I shall try to run over to see you, dearest, if only for a few
minutes. Forgive me for troubling you. With all blessings,
Your loving
MINA HARKER.
_Dr. Seward s Diary._
_20 September._--Only resolution and habit can let me make an entry
to-night. I am too miserable, too low-spirited, too sick of the world
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