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At Last Marion Harland 9600K 2023-09-02

"This is torpor--not sleep, nor yet death," she said, without

recoiling from the pitiful wreck

Indeed, as she spoke, she bent to feel his pulse; held the eers until she could determine whether the

feeble stroke were a reality, or a trick of the iination

"Dr Ritchie should see hi-room

If you call him out, it will excite less reuess why you want him," were her directions

to her aunt, uttered quickly, but distinctly

"Yon will not stay here! At least, go into the hall! What will the

doctor think?"

"I shall reone to

presume upon my condescension," with a faint sarcastic emphasis

At Mrs Sutton's return with the physician, she perceived that her

niece had not awaited her co in sentimental idleness A thick

woollen coverlet rapped about the prostrate figure, and Mabel,

upon her knees on the dusty hearth, was applying the candle to a

heap of waste paper and bits of board she had ferreted out in

closets and cuddy-holes It caught and blazed up hurriedly in season

to facilitate the doctor's examination of the patient, thrown so

oddly upon his care Mrs Sutton had not neglected, in her haste, to

procure a warirl's shoulders, whispering an entreaty that she would go to bed,