The Invalid.—A violent paroxysm of coughing had just seized the lady, and I waited some moments before I could observe her features. She had surely seen better days. There were about her and the little apartment evidences of refinement, from her own tidy person to the little sweet rosebush in full bloom, and the faultless white board, and the scanty, though snowy curtains that shaded the attic window, which produced a melancholy effect upon me, which was not lessened when good breeding required me to address my patient.
CALL AT THE TENEMENT.
Her countenance had evidently been beautiful; an immense mass of auburn hair, such as Titian loved to paint, yet shaded her brow; the eyes were large and lustrous; the nose was slightly aquiline, the lips thin; and every feature bespoke the woman of a highly refined and intellectual nature. When her gaze met mine for an instant, I felt that pity was misplaced in the emotions which swelled my heart, for the lofty dignity, almost hauteur, in that look, would have become an empress in reduced circumstances.
“Go, dearest, to your little bed, and close the door, my love,” she said, turning to the child.
The girl lingered an instant. I stood between the dying mother and her child. I turned aside whilst their lips met in that holy kiss that a dying mother only can give, ay, and a prayer that she alone can breathe.
When the little creature had withdrawn, by a narrow door scarcely distinguishable from the rest of the rough, whitewashed boards that divided her little closet from the main room, the mother turned her earnest gaze upon me, and said,—
“I have troubled you, doctor, not with the view of taxing your kindness to any extent, but to ask how long I may yet linger,”—placing her hand on her wasted bosom,—“depending for every service upon that little fragile creature, for whom alone I have, I fear, a selfish desire to live.”
I could not answer immediately. My heart was too full. I had recognized the dreadful malady at a glance. She was far gone with consumption.
“I have a duty to perform, connected with her, that depends upon your answer—one that I have selfishly, alas! too long deferred.”