task I could undertake.

Miss Marchmont was a woman of fortune, and lived in a handsome
residence; but she was a rheumatic cripple, impotent, foot and hand,
and had been so for twenty years. She always sat upstairs: her
drawing-room adjoined her bed-room. I had often heard of Miss
Marchmont, and of her peculiarities (she had the character of being
very eccentric), but till now had never seen her. I found her a
furrowed, grey-haired woman, grave with solitude, stern with long
affliction, irritable also, and perhaps exacting. It seemed that a
maid, or rather companion, who had waited on her for some years, was
about to be married; and she, hearing of my bereaved lot, had sent for
me, with the idea that I might supply this person's place. She made the
proposal to me after tea, as she and I sat alone by her fireside.

"It will not be an easy life;" said she candidly, "for I require a good
deal of attention, and you will be much confined; yet, perhaps,
contrasted with the existence you have lately led, it may appear
tolerable."

I reflected. Of course it ought to appear tolerable, I argued inwardly;
but somehow, by some strange fatality, it would not. To live here, in
this close room, the watcher of suffering--sometimes, perhaps, the butt
of temper--through all that was to come of my youth; while all that was
gone had passed, to say the least, not blissfully! My heart sunk one
moment, then it revived; for though I forced myself to _realise_ evils,
I think I was too prosaic to _idealise_, and consequently to exaggerate
them.

"My doubt is whether I should have strength for the undertaking," I
observed.

"That is my own scruple," said she; "for you look a worn-out creature."

So I did. I saw myself in the glass, in my mourning-dress, a faded,
hollow-eyed vision. Yet I thought little of the wan spectacle. The
blight, I believed, was chiefly external: I still felt life at life's
sources.

"What else have you in view--anything?"

"Nothing clear as yet: but I may find something."

"So you imagine: perhaps you are right. Try your own method, then; and
if it does not succeed, test mine. The chance I have offered shall be
left open to you for three months."

This was kind. I told her so, and expressed my gratitude. While I was
speaking, a paroxysm of pain came on. I ministered to her; made the
necessary applications, according to her directions, and, by the time
she was relieved, a sort of intimacy was already formed bet