pon my uncovered
head, soon completed the measure of this infatuation, and all sense and
guidance left me.

By what instinctive impulse I still held on my grasp, I cannot explain;
but there I clung during the whole of that long dreadful day, and the
still more dreadful night, when the piercing cold cramped my limbs, and
seemed as if freezing the very blood within me. It was no wish for life,
it was no anxiety to save myself, that now filled me. It seemed like a
vague impulse of necessity that compelled me to hang on. It was, as it
were, part of that terrible sentence which made this my doom for ever!

An utter unconsciousness must have followed this state, and a dreary
blank, with flitting shapes of suffering, is all that remains to my
recollection.

*****

Probably within the whole range of human sensations, there is not one
so perfect in its calm and soothing influence as the first burst of
gratitude we feel when recovering from a long and severe illness. There
is not an object, however humble and insignificant, that is not for
the time invested with a new interest. The air is balmier, flowers are
sweeter, the voices of friends, the smiles and kind looks, are dearer
and fonder than we have ever known them. The whole world has put on a
new aspect for us, and we have not a thought that is not teeming with
forgiveness and affection. Such, in all their completeness, were my
feelings as I lay on the poop-deck of a large three-masted ship, which,
with studding and topgallant sails all set, proudly held her course up
the Gulf of St Lawrence.

She was a Danzig barque, the _Hoffnung_, bound for Quebec, her only
passengers being a Moravian minister and his wife, on their way to join
a small German colony established near Lake Champlain. To Gottfried
Kroller and his dear little wife I owe not life alone, but nearly all
that has made it valuable. With means barely removed from absolute
poverty, I found that they had spared nothing to assist in my recovery;
for, when discovered, emaciation and wasting had so far reduced me that
nothing but the most unremitting care and kindness could have succeeded
in restoring me. To this end they bestowed not only their whole time and
attention, but every little delicacy of their humble sea-store. All
the little cordials and restoratives, meant for a season of sickness
or debility, were lavished unsparingly on me, and every instinct of
national thrift and carefulness gave way before the mo