DEERHURST.
Next morning, when the seal was taken off the lips of the object of their care, he expressed in grateful terms his deep sense of the humanity which had actuated both the gentleman to take so generous an interest in his fate.
"You owe no thanks to me," replied the one who had enjoined and released him from silence, and who was now alone with him; "I am only the agent of another. Yet I do not deny that, in obeying the benevolent orders of Sir Robert Somerset, I have frequent opportunities of gratifying my own heart."
Thaddeus was so confounded at this discovery that he could not speak, and the gentleman proceeded.
"I am apothecary to Sir Robert's household, and as my excellent employer has been long afflicted with an ill state of health, I live in a small Lodge at the other end of the park. He is the boast of the county: the best landlord and the kindest neighbor. All ranks of people love him; and when he dies, (which his late apoplectic fits make it too probable may be soon,) both poor and rich will lose their friend. Ill as he was this morning, when I told him you were out of danger, he expressed a pleasure which did him more good than all my medicines."
Not considering the wildness of the question, Thaddeus hastily demanded, "Does he know who I am?"
The honest apothecary stared at the look and tone with which these words were delivered, and then replied, "No, sir; is there any reason to make you wish that he should not?"
"Certainly none," replied Thaddeus, recollecting himself; "but I shall be impatient until I have an opportunity of telling him how grateful I am for the goodness he has shown to me as a stranger."
Surprised at these hints, (which the count, not considering their tendency, allowed to escape him,) the apothecary gathered sufficient from them, united with the speaker's superior mien, to make him suppose that his patient was some emigrant of quality, whom Sir Robert would rejoice in having served. These surmises and conclusions having passed quickly through the worthy gentleman's brain, he bowed his head with that respect which the generous mind is proud to pay to nobility in ruins, and resumed:
"Whoever you may be, sir, a peasant or a prince, you will meet with British hospitality from the noble owner of this mansion. The magnificence of his spirit is equalled by the goodness of his heart; and I am certain that Sir Robert will consider as fortunate the severe attack which, bringing him from Somerset for change of air, has afforded him an opportunity of serving you."