o has taken care
of this home in which I placed all my joy? Shall I not find my closets
empty, my bookcase, stripped, all my poor treasures lost through
negligence or dishonesty? Where are the plants I cultivated, the birds I
fed? All are gone! my attic is despoiled, silent and solitary! As it is
only for the last few moments that I have returned to a consciousness of
what surrounds me, I am even ignorant who has nursed me during my long
illness! Doubtless some hireling, who will leave when all my means of
recompense are exhausted! And what will my masters, for whom I am
bound to work, have said to my absence? At this time of the year, when
business is most pressing, can they have done without me, will they
even have tried to do so? Perhaps I am already superseded in the humble
situation by which I earned my daily bread! And it is thou-thou alone,
wicked daughter of Time--who hast brought all these misfortunes upon
me: strength, health, comfort, work--thou hast taken all from me. I have
only received outrage and loss from thee, and yet thou darest to claim
my gratitude!"

"Ah! die then, since thy day is come; but die despised and cursed; and
may I write on thy tomb the epitaph the Arabian poet inscribed upon that
of a king:

"'Rejoice, thou passer-by: he whom we have buried here
cannot live again.'"

.......................

I was wakened by a hand taking mine; and opening my eyes, I recognized
the doctor.

After having felt my pulse, he nodded his head, sat down at the foot of
the bed, and looked at me, rubbing his nose with his snuffbox. I have
since learned that this was a sign of satisfaction with the doctor.

"Well! so we wanted old snub-nose to carry us off?" said M. Lambert, in
his half-joking, half-scolding way. "What the deuce of a hurry we were
in! It was necessary to hold you back with both arms at least!"

"Then you had given me up, doctor?" asked I, rather alarmed.

"Not at all," replied the old physician. "We can't give up what we
have not got; and I make it a rule never to have any hope. We are but
instruments in the hands of Providence, and each of us should say, with
Ambroise Pare: 'I tend him, God cures him!"'

"May He be blessed then, as well as you," cried I; "and may my health
come back with the new year!"

M. Lambert shrugged his shoulders.

"Begin by asking yourself for it," resumed he, bluntly. "God has given
it you, and it is your own sense, and not chance, that mu