Twelve long months were midnight to the mind of the childless father;
when they were only half gone, he took his bed; and every day, and every
night, old Charlie, the "low-down," the "fool," watched him tenderly,
tended him lovingly, for the sake of his name, his misfortunes, and his
broken heart. No woman's step crossed the floor of the sick-chamber,
whose western dormer-windows overpeered the dingy architecture of old
Charlie's block; Charlie and a skilled physician, the one all interest,
the other all gentleness, hope, and patience--these only entered by the
door; but by the window came in a sweet-scented evergreen vine,
transplanted from the caving bank of Belles Demoiselles. It caught the
rays of sunset in its flowery net and let then softly in upon the sick
man's bed; gathered the glancing beams of the moon at midnight, and
often wakened the sleeper to look, with his mindless eyes, upon their
pretty silver fragments strewn upon the floor.
By and by there seemed--there was--a twinkling dawn of returning reason.
Pages:
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178