A Flat Iron for a Farthing

. Not only was I his son, I was his only son. Moreover, I was the only living child of the beloved wife of his youth-all that remained to him of my fair mother. Then I w

r a while at least, I should have been much

"and never had her clothes off;" and if the wearing of clothes had been one of the sharpest torments of the I

w every order of the doctor carried out, and, at a certain stage, fed me every ten minutes, against my will, coaxing me to obedience, and never losing heart or temper for one instant. And this although my petulance and not infrequent assurances that I wished and preferred to die-"I was so tired"-within the sick room, and my father's despair and bitter groan that he would sacrifice every earthly possession to keep me alive, outside it, would have caused many

on her. Fortunately for his own health, she gained sufficient influence to insist, almost as peremptorily as in my case, upon his taking food. Often afterwards did she describe how he and Rubens sat outside the door they were not a

aten to fail her. It was on my repeated and urgen

ment. And to send for the parson seemed to her tantamount to dismissing the doctor and ringing the passing bell. My father was equally averse from the

this to the point of wearing shoes instead of boots. He was a learned man, a naturalist, and an antiquarian. His appearance was remarkable, his hair being prematurely white, and yet thick, his eyes grey and expressive, with thick dark eyebrows, which actually met above them. For the rest, he was tall, thin, and dressed in obedience to the canons. I had been much interested in all that I had heard of him, and since my illness I had often thought of the unqualified note of praise I had heard sounded in his favour by more than one village matron, "He's beautiful in a sic

spoke one of his merits became obv

n!" I cried,

that dwell in it," he repeated slo

s and all," w

in a manner which greatly impressed me, and I now did likewise, in that imitativeness of childhood which had helped to lead me to the fancy for surrounding my own sick bed with all the circumstances I had seen and heard of in such cases in the village. For this reason I had (to her hardly concealed distress) given Nurse Bundle, from time

ad of exciting me, and to the sound of his melodious voice reading in soothing monotone fro

, I never knew. As I dreamed, it seemed a wonderful and beautiful vision, though

of my acquaintance with t