Nixon, with an exclamation of terror, requests to
know what he would have done to him if he HAD seen him, at which
Felix smiling darkly and clenching his right fist, she exclaims,
'Goodness gracious!' with a distracted air, and insists upon
extorting a promise that he never will on any account do anything
so rash, which her dutiful son-it being something more than three
years since the offence was committed-reluctantly concedes, and his
mother, shaking her head prophetically, fears with a sigh that his
spirit will lead him into something violent yet. The discourse
then, by an easy transition, turns upon the spirit which glows
within the bosom of Felix, upon which point Felix himself becomes
eloquent, and relates a thrilling anecdote of the time when he used
to sit up till two o'clock in the morning reading French, and how
his mother used to say, 'Felix, you will make yourself ill, I know
you will;' and how HE used to say, 'Mother, I don't care-I will do
it;' and how at last his mother privately procured a doctor to come
and see him, who declared, the moment he felt his pulse, that if he
had gone on reading one night more-only one night more-he must have
put a blister on each temple, and another between his shoulders;
and who, as it was, sat down upon the instant, and writing a
prescription for a blue pill, said it must be taken immediately, or
he wouldn't answer for the consequences. The recital of these and
many other moving perils of the like nature, constantly harrows up
the feelings of Mr.
Pages:
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43