Picture Dictionary & Books : Free for English Learner!

A kind of pleasant stupor was stealing over me as I sat by the genial fire.

In an undertone she gave some directions to Hannah.

Ere long, with the servant's aid, I contrived to mount a staircase; my dripping clothes were removed; soon a warm, dry bed received me.

I thanked God-experienced amidst unutterable exhaustion a glow of grateful joy-and slept.

The recollection of about three days and nights succeeding this is very dim in my mind.

I can recall some sensations felt in that interval; but few thoughts framed, and no actions performed.

I knew I was in a small room and in a narrow bed.

To that bed I seemed to have grown; I lay on it motionless as a stone; and to have torn me from it would have been almost to kill me.

I took no note of the lapse of time-of the change from morning to noon, from noon to evening.

I observed when any one entered or left the apartment: I could even tell who they were; I could understand what was said when the speaker stood near to me; but I could not answer; to open my lips or move my limbs was equally impossible.

Hannah, the servant, was my most frequent visitor.

Her coming disturbed me.

I had a feeling that she wished me away: that she did not understand me or my circumstances; that she was prejudiced against me.

Diana and Mary appeared in the chamber once or twice a day.

They would whisper sentences of this sort at my bedside-

"It is very well we took her in."

"Yes; she would certainly have been found dead at the door in the morning had she been left out all night. I wonder what she has gone through?"

"Strange hardships, I imagine-poor, emaciated, pallid wanderer?"

"She is not an uneducated person, I should think, by her manner of speaking; her accent was quite pure; and the clothes she took off, though splashed and wet, were little worn and fine."

"She has a peculiar face; fleshless and haggard as it is, I rather like it; and when in good health and animated, I can fancy her physiognomy would be agreeable."

Never once in their dialogues did I hear a syllable of regret at the hospitality they had extended to me, or of suspicion of, or aversion to, myself. I was comforted.

Mr. St. John came but once: he looked at me, and said my state of lethargy was the result of reaction from excessive and protracted fatigue.

He pronounced it needless to send for a doctor: nature, he was sure, would manage best, left to herself.

He said every nerve had been overstrained in some way, and the whole system must sleep torpid a while.

Chapter 29

Table of Contents