"
What could I do? I gave my card to the young lady, and taking my
offering from my bosom--"if my poor friend," I said, with accents
as broken almost as his own, "should ask where this came from,
name me, and say from the most obliged and most grateful man
alive. Say, the gold of which it is composed was saved by grains
at a time, and was hoarded with as much avarice as ever was a
miser's. To bring it here I have come a thousand miles; and now,
alas, I find him thus!"
I laid the box on the table, and was retiring with a lingering
step. The eye of the invalid was caught by it, as that of a
child by a glittering toy, and with infantine impatience he
faltered out inquiries of his niece. With gentle mildness she
repeated again and again who I was, and why I came, etc. I was
about to turn, and hasten from a scene so painful, when the
physician laid his hand on my sleeve. "Stop," he said, "there is
a change."
There was, indeed, and a marked one. A faint glow spread over
his pallid features--they seemed to gain the look of intelligence
which belongs to vitality--his eye once more kindled--his lip
coloured--and drawing himself up out of the listless posture he
had hitherto maintained, he rose without assistance.
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