The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction | Page 7

that dreadful night. I thought she was gone too; she
was brought in, insensible, and remained so for hours. She was taken
immediately to my house, and put to bed. The body of her brother was
also carried there, for I knew she would not be separated from it. I sat
beside her, watching her faint breathing, anxious for some sign of
returning consciousness, but dreading the agony which must attend it.
If she had died, I could hardly have grieved for her; but there might be
parents, brothers, and sisters! Oh, that I knew, that I could bring them
to her! Alone, among strangers! how was she to bear her solitary
grief?--how was she to sustain the struggle which awaited her in the
first hour of her awakening? I could not banish the remembrance of
them as I had seen them in the afternoon; happy in each other, and
thinking not of separation; then, as he was when I last saw him, full of
life and acuity, and apparently unboundedly happy, in the
contemplation of scenes which a soul like his was fitted to enjoy.
Day dawned, and no change was perceivable; but in two hours

afterwards she opened her eyes. I crossed the room, to see whether she
observed my motion. She did; and I therefore opened the curtain, and
spoke to her. She gazed, but did not reply. Presently she seized my arm,
muttering some words, of which "my mother!" was all I could
understand. I took the opportunity of saying, that I was going to write
to her family, and asked how I should address them.
"My family!" said she, "I have none. They are all gone now!"
I thought her mind was wandering. "Your father and mother," said I,
"where are they?" My heart smote me as I uttered the words, but the
question was necessary.
"I have no father and mother!"
"Nor brothers and sisters? Pardon me, but I must ask."
"You need not ask, because I will tell you. There were many of us once,
but I am the last!"
I could not go on, yet it must be done.
"But you have friends, who will come to you?"
"Yes; I have a grandfather. He lives in Hampshire. He is very old, but
he will come to me, if he still lives. If not!"----
"He will come," said I, "I will write to him directly."
"I will write myself!" exclaimed she, starting up. "He will not believe
the story unless I write myself. Who would believe it?"
I assured her she should write the next day; but I positively forbad such
an exertion at present. She yielded; she was indeed in no condition for
writing. Her mind seemed in an unnatural state; and I was by no means
sure that she had given a correct account of herself. I wrote to her
grandfather, on the supposition that she had; and was quite satisfied
when, in the evening, she gave me, in few words, her family history.
She had been relieved, though exhausted, by tears; and her mind was
calm and rational. She was indeed the last of her family. Her mother
had died a few weeks before, after a lingering illness; and the sole
surviving brother and sister had been prevailed on to take this tour, to
recruit their strength and spirits, after their long watching and anxiety.
They were always, as I discovered, bound together by the strongest
affection; and now that they had been made by circumstances all in all
to each other, they were thus separated! Will not my readers excuse my
attempting to describe such grief as her's must have been?
Her grandfather arrived on the earliest possible day. He was old, and

had some infirmities; but his health was not, as he assured us, at all
injured by his hurried and painful journey. Nothing could be more
tender than his kindness to his charge; though he was, perhaps, too far
advanced in this life, and too near another, to feel the pressure of this
kind of sorrow, as a younger or weaker mind would have done.
I could not help indulging in much painful conjecture as to the fate of
this young creature, when she should lose her last remaining stay: a
period which could not be far distant. But on this point I obtained some
satisfaction before her departure.
A few days before she left me, a gentleman arrived at the inn, and came
immediately to my cottage. She introduced him to me as "a friend." No
one said what kind of a friend he was; but I could entertain no doubt
that he was one who would supply the place of her brother to her.
"Her mind will not be left without a keeper," thought I, as I