DOING THE BEST. 



roused up the dying embers employed some of the female 

 neighbours (ready enough, now their first panic was over, to do 

 kind offices even for " Tombstone Tim") to heat water, warm 

 blankets, do all, in short, that could be done, in the doctor's 

 absence, for the recovery of the half-drowned boy. But it was 

 not till the surgeon came, and applied means of revival more 

 powerful than ours, that poor Tim once more opened his eyes 

 on the living world, with which he had so little concern, lie 

 threw a glance round his usually lone garret, now so un- 

 wontedl}' occupied ; but the look seemed to convey no image 

 to his mind, and before night he was in the delirium of a 

 burning fever. 



During the course of a long subsequent illness, we need 

 hardly say that young Tomkins wanted for nothing in our 

 power to procure him. He could not be removed, but his 

 wretched unfurnished dormitory assumed an aspect of comfort 

 its occupier had never known. One good woman of the village 

 so entirely got over her superstitious fears of " Tombstone 

 Tim" as to attend on him by iiiyld as well as day ; her watch 

 being, however, not unfrequently relieved by a more awkward 

 but as kind a nurse in the person of " tall Joe/'' who evinced 

 an uncommon interest in the poor " possessed," whom he had 

 helped to rescue from the Evil One's power. 



As for Dame Huggins, she seemed to have sunk into a state 

 of complete fatuity, though, like a machine, she still regular! \ 

 plied her dailx occupations, bought from the village shop and 



