DEATH-BED. 



283 



breathless messenger, who came to say the child 

 was much worse; and that I must come down 

 to the secretary's house immediately. I found 

 the infant in its mother's arms, with its eyes clos- 

 ed, and the sickly hue of its skin changed to a 

 pure marble whiteness : indeed, it looked more 

 like a statue than a living being, and was evi- 

 dently dying. The poor father, who still fondly 

 rested his hopes on my opinion, accompanied me 

 to the room, and watched my looks with the most 

 melancholy anxiety. On catching from the ex- 

 pression of my countenance, when I beheld the 

 infant, what was the nature of my thoughts, he 

 took one last miserable look at his child, and rush- 

 ed into the streets. I saw him no more till long 

 after all was over; and I had returned to my 

 house ; when I observed him at a distance, bare- 

 headed, and running, in a distracted manner, 

 away from that part of the town in which his 

 house lay. Meanwhile, the mother, more true to 

 her duties, sat upon the bed, and from time to 

 time pressed the infant's cheeks, and tried to 

 raise its eyelids, earnestly supplicating it to speak 

 once more. — " Dolores ! — my little Dolores, don't 

 you know your own mother ? Dolores — Do- 



