62 DOING THE BEST. 



of her kitchen 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. He threw a glance round his 

 usually lone garret, now so unwontedly 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 vil- 

 lage so entirely got over her superstitious fears of " Tomb- 

 stone Tim " as to attend on him by night 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 regularly 

 plied her daily occupations, bought from the village shop 



