"I wonder we have never met with him, or heard of him before."
"Oh, miss! he's not been in this country very long, and he goes out nowhere but to visit the poor; and tired and weak as he looks, he seems never tired of doing good."
"He looks very pale and thin."
"Ay, doesn't he? I'm afraid he's but badly; I've heard some say he was in a galloping consumption, others a decline; I don't know, but he seems mighty weak like."
A little more talk went on in the same way, and then Lettice asked the nurse whether she felt rested, as it was time to be returning home, and, giving the poor bed-ridden patient a little money, which was received with abundance of thanks, Lettice left the house.
When she entered the little garden, she saw the young man was not gone; he was leaning pensively against the gate, watching the swinging branches of a magnificent ash tree, which grew upon a green plot by the side of the lane. Beautiful it was as it spread its mighty magnificent head against the deep blue summer sky, and a soft wind gently whispered among its forest of leaves.
Lettice could not help, as she observed the countenance of the young man, who seemed lost in thought, admiring the extraordinary beauty of its expression. Something of the sublime, something of the angelic, which we see in a few remarkable countenances, but usually in those which are spiritualized by mental sufferings, and great physical delicacy.
He started from his reverie as she and the nurse approached, and lifted the latchet of the little wicket to lot them pass. And, as he did so, the large, melancholy eye was lighted up with something of a pleasurable expression, as he looked at Lettice, and said,
"A beautiful afternoon. May I venture to ask were you intending to visit that poor bed-ridden creature? I thought by the expression she used that you were not acquainted with her case, and probably had never been in the cottage before. Will you excuse me for saying she is in great necessity?"
"It is the first time I have ever been down this lane, sir, but I assure you it shall not be the last; I will come and see the poor woman again. There are few things I pity so much as the being bed-ridden."