As my patient began to acquire strength, I demanded of him his name and family, that I might inform his friends of his situation. On his answering 'Harley,' I enquired, smiling—
If he remembered hearing his mother speak of a little Protegé, Emma Courtney, whom she favoured with her partial friendship?
'Oh, yes!'—and his curiosity had been strongly awakened to procure a sight of this lady.
'Behold her, then, in your nurse!'
'Is it possible!' he exclaimed, taking my hand, and pressing it with his lips—'My sister!—my friend!—how shall I ever pay the debt I owe you?'
'We will settle that matter another time; but it is now become proper that I should inform your excellent mother of what has happened, which I have hitherto delayed, lest surprise should be prejudicial to you, and retard your recovery.'
I then recounted to him the particulars of the late occurrences, of which he had before but a confused notion; adding my surprise, that I had neither seen, nor heard, any thing from Mr Morton.
He informed me, in his turn, that, having received an express, informing him of his mother's alarming situation, he immediately quitted the seat of his friend, where he was on a visit, to hasten to her; that, for this purpose, riding late, he by some means bewildered himself through the darkness of the evening, by which mistake he encountered our chaise, and he hoped was, in some measure, notwithstanding the accidents which ensued, accessary to my preservation.
I quitted him to write to my friend, whom I, at length, judged it necessary to acquaint with his situation. On the receipt of my letter, she flew to us on the wings of maternal tenderness—folded her beloved Augustus, and myself, alternately to her affectionate bosom, calling us 'her children—her darling children!—I was her guardian angel—the preserver of her son!—and he only could repay my goodness!' I ventured to raise my eyes to him—they met his—mine were humid with tears of tenderness: a cloud passed over his brow—he entreated his mother to restrain her transports—he was yet too enfeebled to bear these emotions. She recollected herself in an instant; and, after again embracing him, leaning on my arm, walked out into the air, to relieve the tumultuous sensations that pressed upon her heart.
Once more she made me recite, minutely, the late events—strained me in her arms, repeatedly calling me—