limb, whilst he said with difficulty--

"Anna, I shall die--I am suffocated--air--air--my heart beats like a
hammer."

I threw the window open, and the man drooped on the sill, and wept
fearfully.

"What does this mean?" I asked, speaking in a low tone to the wife.

"Your sudden kindness, sir. He is not able to bear it. He is proof against
cruelty and persecution--he has grown reckless to them, but constant
illness has made him so weak, that any thing unusual quite overcomes him."

"Well, there, take the money, and get some food as quickly as you can. I
will not wait to distress him now. I will call again to-morrow; he will be
quieter then, and we'll see what can be done for you. Those children must
be cold. Have you no blankets?"

"None, sir. We have nothing in the world. What, you see here, even to the
straw, belongs, to the landlord of the house, who has been charitable
enough to give us shelter."

"Well, never mind--don't despond--don't give way--keep the poor fellow's
sprits up. Here's another crown. Let him have a glass of wine, it will
strengthen him; and do you take a glass too. I shall see you again
to-morrow. There, good-by."

And, fool and woman that I was, on I went, and stood for some minutes,
ashamed of myself, in the passage below, because, forsooth, I had been
talking and exciting myself until my eyes had filled uncomfortably with
water.

It was impossible for me to go to sleep again until I had purchased
blankets for these people, and so I resolved at once to get them. I was
leaving the house for that purpose, when a porter with a bundle entered
it.

"Whom do you want, my man?" said I.

"One Warton, sir", said he.

"Top of the house," said I again--"back room--to the right. What have you
got there?"

"Some sheets and blankets, sir."

"From whom?"

"My master sir, here's his card."

It was the card of an upholsterer living within a short distance of where
I stood. I directed the porter again, and forthwith sallied to the man of
furniture. Here I learnt that I had been forestalled by an individual as
zealous in the cause of poor Warton as myself. I was glad of this, for I
knew very well, in doing any little piece of duty, how apt our dirty
vanity is to puff us up, and to make us assume so much more than we have
any title to; and it is nothing short of relief to be able to extinguish
this said vanity in the broad light of other men's benevolence. The
upholsterer, however, could not in