lays down on the table a little miniature mounted in gold. "It's a
miniature," she says, "of my poor dear father! I little thought
once, that I should ever thank God for depriving me of the
original, but I do, and have done for years back, most fervently.
Take it away, sir," she says, "it's a face that never turned from
me in sickness and distress, and I can hardly bear to turn from it
now, when, God knows, I suffer both in no ordinary degree." I
couldn't say nothing, but I raised my head from the inventory which
I was filling up, and looked at Fixem; the old fellow nodded to me
significantly, so I ran my pen through the "MINI" I had just
written, and left the miniature on the table.

'Well, sir, to make short of a long story, I was left in
possession, and in possession I remained; and though I was an
ignorant man, and the master of the house a clever one, I saw what
he never did, but what he would give worlds now (if he had 'em) to
have seen in time. I saw, sir, that his wife was wasting away,
beneath cares of which she never complained, and griefs she never
told. I saw that she was dying before his eyes; I knew that one
exertion from him might have saved her, but he never made it. I
don't blame him: I don't think he COULD rouse himself. She had so
long anticipated all his wishes, and acted for him, that he was a
lost man when left to himself. I used to think when I caught sight
of her, in the clothes she used to wear, which looked shabby even
upon her, and would have been scarcely decent on any one else, that
if I was a gentleman it would wring my very heart to see the woman
that was a smart and merry girl when I courted her, so altered
through her love for me. Bitter cold and damp weather it was, yet,
though her dress was thin, and her shoes none of the best, during
the whole three days, from morning to night, she was out of doors