his patient was such, as to keep him in momentary apprehension of her
decease. While Miss Melville lay in this feeble and exhausted condition,
Mrs. Hammond betrayed every token of the tenderest anxiety. Her
sensibility was habitually of the acutest sort, and the qualities of
Emily were such as powerfully to fix her affection. She loved her like a
mother. Upon the present occasion, every sound, every motion, made her
tremble. Doctor Wilson had introduced another nurse, in consideration of
the incessant fatigue Mrs. Hammond had undergone; and he endeavoured, by
representations, and even by authority, to compel her to quit the
apartment of the patient. But she was uncontrollable; and he at length
found that he should probably do her more injury, by the violence that
would be necessary to separate her from the suffering innocent, than by
allowing her to follow her inclination. Her eye was a thousand times
turned, with the most eager curiosity, upon the countenance of Doctor
Wilson, without her daring to breathe a question respecting his opinion,
lest he should answer her by a communication of the most fatal tidings.
In the mean time she listened with the deepest attention to every thing
that dropped either from the physician or the nurse, hoping to collect
as it were from some oblique hint, the intelligence which she had not
courage expressly to require.

Towards morning the state of the patient seemed to take a favourable
turn. She dozed for near two hours, and, when she awoke, appeared
perfectly calm and sensible. Understanding that Mr. Falkland had
brought the physician to attend her, and was himself in her
neighbourhood, she requested to see him. Mr. Falkland had gone in the
mean time, with one of his tenants, to bail the debt, and now entered
the prison to enquire whether the young lady might be safely removed,
from her present miserable residence, to a more airy and commodious
apartment. When he appeared, the sight of him revived in the mind of