What interest have I
in this place, or in any place that I can bring to my remembrance?
My mind is going blind!"
There was a door before him, and he knocked at it. Being invited,
by a voice within, to enter, he complied.
"Is that my kind nurse?" said the voice. "But I need not ask her.
There is no one else to come here."
It spoke cheerfully, though in a languid tone, and attracted his
attention to a young man lying on a couch, drawn before the
chimney-piece, with the back towards the door. A meagre scanty
stove, pinched and hollowed like a sick man's cheeks, and bricked
into the centre of a hearth that it could scarcely warm, contained
the fire, to which his face was turned. Being so near the windy
house-top, it wasted quickly, and with a busy sound, and the
burning ashes dropped down fast.
"They chink when they shoot out here," said the student, smiling,
"so, according to the gossips, they are not coffins, but purses. I
shall be well and rich yet, some day, if it please God, and shall
live perhaps to love a daughter Milly, in remembrance of the
kindest nature and the gentlest heart in the world."
He put up his hand as if expecting her to take it, but, being
weakened, he lay still, with his face resting on his other hand,
and did not turn round.
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