the child still in his arms he ran down the stairs. I followed with his
hat, which of course he had forgotten. A cab, by good luck, was passing
our very door; but the chambermaid would not let us enter it till she
had satisfied herself that it was not the same she had dismissed. This
preliminary investigation completed, we entered and drove to the Lamb.

The chambermaid, who sat opposite, passed the time in ineffectual
overtures to relieve my father of the little girl,--who still clung
nestling to his breast,--in a long epic, much broken into episodes, of
the causes which had led to her dismissal of the late cabman, who, to
swell his fare, had thought proper to take a "circumbendibus!"--and with
occasional tugs at her cap, and smoothings down of her gown, and
apologies for being such a figure, especially when her eyes rested on my
satin cravat, or drooped on my shining boots.

Arrived at the Lamb, the chambermaid, with conscious dignity, led us up
a large staircase, which seemed interminable. As she mounted the region
above the third story, she paused to take breath and inform us,
apologetically, that the house was full, but that if the "gent" stayed
over Friday, he would be moved into No. 54, "with a look-out and a
chimbly." My little cousin now slipped from my father's arms, and,
running up the stairs, beckoned to us to follow. We did so, and were
led to a door, at which the child stopped and listened; then, taking off
her shoes, she stole in on tiptoe. We entered after her.

By the light of a single candle we saw my poor uncle's face; it was
flushed with fever, and the eyes had that bright, vacant stare which it
is so terrible to meet. Less terrible is it to find the body wasted,
the features sharp with the great life-struggle, than to look on the
face from which the mind is gone,--the eyes in which there is no