As she put
the question, I laid my hand on her pulse; and, as it went on pretty
firmly, I went on too. When I had said all there was to say, she thanked
me earnestly, and said, as sweetly as anything could possibly be said,
that the information would add double weight to the cautions and other
counsels I had given her, and told me that, if I ever came to be in a
situation like hers, she trusted that I should find the comfort of being
dealt with with candor and kindness like mine. After all, Katy, she may
live yet many years, and die at last of something else; and that is
about the best that can be prognosticated of you and me, my dear."
"'Tis true the young _may_ die, but the old must," thought I. I was half
comforted, and only half. Yet the pensive shadow of coming doom--or
shall I not rather say the solemn dawn of approaching eternity?--seemed
to lend a new and more unearthly charm to the lovely spiritual vision I
cherished in my mind.
Presently, instead of passing a gate, the Doctor turned in at it, and
drove smoothly up the gentle slope of a hard-rolled winding avenue lined
with hemlocks. "Pretty, isn't it?" cried he. "O for the time when I
shall retire upon my fortune, and leave my office to Phil the second!
There, Katy! What do you think of that?"
What did I think? O, too much to be told, either then or now! From the
dark trees one forward step of each of De Quincey's forefeet brought us
out into a high amphitheatre, at the instant flooded with sunshine.
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