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He heard the clock strike two, and shortly after, in a fit of exasperation, thinking to discipline his mind with reading, lighted the candle on the bedside stand, found his book, and fumbled vainly in the little silver casket beside the candlestick for a cigarette. Now a sincere smoker can do without smoking for hours on end, as long as the deprivation is voluntary.
But instead of running to his bedside, she darted forward with the joyful cry, "She is coming!" towards the door and Eva. Soon after the latter, leading the child by the hand, entered the room. Biberli felt as if the sun were rising again. How gay her greeting sounded! The expression of her blue eyes seemed to announce something pleasant.
Humoring the fancy, I stepped to his bedside and gave my hand to the hot clasp of the poor fellow, a man of middle age, whose eyes, fever-bright, still devoured my face with a happy look. "Howdy, Milly! I've been looking for you every day. I'm mighty glad you've come. The roar of the guns has hurt my head powerful. Get some water from the far spring and bathe my head, Milly."
But the tears flowed faster to think that it would indeed be a sacrifice, an offering up of youth, beauty, hope, happiness for life. Then she dried her eyes, and went down on her knees to pray at her bedside; and so rose up, making certain stern resolutions, which it is only fair to state she afterwards kept like a woman!
She told herself over and over again that wealth entailed duties as well as privileges; but she had no clear idea what were the duties so entailed, or what were the privileges. How could she have obtained any clear idea on the subject in that prison which she had inhabited for so many years by her brother's bedside?
"Come nearer to me, mother," she said. "Come near and speak to me." Mrs. Wentworth drew near the bedside, and bent her face to the child. "What do you wish, darling?" she asked. "Mother, I am dying I am going to Heaven," Ella said, speaking with an effort. A smothered sob, was the only response she met with. "Don't cry mother," continued the child.
Suddenly, in the midst of his revery, a loud cry broke on his ear. He shuddered as he heard, and hastened forebodingly into the adjoining room. The old woman was kneeling by the bedside, and chafing Burley's hand, eagerly looking into his face. A glance sufficed to Leonard. All was over. Burley had died in sleep, calmly, and without a groan.
It as to such a pass as this, to this bitter disappointment that his father had brought him. But yet it should not be said of him that he had begun to neglect his father as soon as he had heard the story. So with a weary step he walked upstairs, and found Sir Thomas in bed, with his mother sitting by the bedside. His mother held out her hand to him, and he took it, leaning against the bedside.
Then he begged the old King to place a watch of four men just outside his bedroom door, and to desire them to make a big fire. When he was about to lie down in bed he would creep out of his hedgehog skin, and leave it lying at the bedside; then the men must rush in, throw the skin into the fire, and stand by till it was entirely burnt up.
Uncomplaining and considerate of everyone but himself, he looked death steadily in the face and wrote on day after day while the whole nation, lost in admiration of his dauntless courage, watched at his bedside with tender solicitude. At last, on July 23, 1885, the pencil slipped from his fingers.
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