"Beat her! for what?"
"Because she had not sold all her corn, which she had been sent out with the evening before. Poor thing, she had fallen asleep, and some villain had robbed her of her little store, and, as it is with greater crimes, the wicked escaped and the innocent suffered."
I thought aloud:
"Great and unknown cause, hast thou brought me to her very door?"
My friend stared, but did not comprehend the expression. "Be careful," said he, "the stairs are very old, and slippery."
"Beat her?" said I, without regarding what he was saying.
"Yes, beat her, while she was in a fever of delirium, from which she has never rallied. She has never spoken rationally, since she was taken. Her constant prayer seems to be to see some particular person before she dies.
"'Oh, if I could see him once more—there—there—that is him—no, no, he did not speak that way to me—he did not curse and beat me.'
"Such is her conversation, and that induced her mother to send for me, but I was not the man. 'Will he come?' she says, every time I visit her; for, thinking to soothe and comfort her, I promised to bring him."
We had reached the top of the stairs, and stood a moment at the open door, where sin and misery dwelt, where sickness had come, and where death would soon enter.