ched to Richard, on whom he
looked as a prodigy of learning and talent. Nothing, in fact, could be
more touching than the attachment of these two brothers: at their
leisure hours they were always to be seen together; their pleasures or
sorrows were mutual.

The privations, injustice, and restraint to which they were subjected
appeared to bind them to each other with a love "passing the love of
woman;" and both found consolation in the mental gifts mercifully
imparted to them.

About four years after we first became acquainted with the Moncktons,
the fair, gentle child, then nearly fourteen, became ill; growing thin,
pale, and weak, till his mother and Richard, in great alarm, besought
old Monckton to let him have medical advice. The request produced a
storm of passionate reproaches. "The boy," he said, "was well enough. He
ate as much as was good for him. Did they think people could not live
without gormandizing as they did? Did they imagine he should throw away
his little means upon doctors, who were all a set of cheats? He should
do nothing of the kind!" And poor Ernest was left to pine and wither,
till Richard in despair sought out a physician, and telling him their
story, besought him to come and see his brother, promising to repay the
advice he asked by his future toil.

Dr. N---- was a kind-hearted, benevolent man. He at once complied with
the youth's entreaty, and called at an hour when the old man was absent
at the farm. He found his patient worse than the brother's report had
led him to believe. The illness was decline, caused probably by want of
sufficiently nourishing food at a period of rapid growth, and increased
by the overworking of a mind that was ever craving after knowledge. He
prescribed such remedies as he judged best; but informed the mother, at
the same time, that strengthening food was of the first importance, and
would be the best means to effect a cure. Alas! how was it to be
obtained? The heart of the miser was impenetrable to their remonstrances
and entreaties--what was life in his eyes compared with gold? When they
found that no human sympathy could be expected from the father, the
mother and brother determined to use their own exertions to obey the
behest of the physician. Early and late the former worked at her needle,
the good doctor finding her as much employment as he could; while
Richard, abandoning the study of his art, painted valentines,
card-racks, and fancy articles for the stat