d not preternaturally active. A
more charming place could not have been devised, for a half-dreamy and
lazy student of either sex to sit down in an easy chair with a pleasant
book, read and muse until the flickering of the sunshine and the shadows
on the floor began to be blended with the type of the page, and then
fall away to the lightest and happiest of slumbers.

There were two figures on the western end of the piazza, under the
shade of the grape-vine. The first was that of an old man, sitting in a
high-backed easy-chair, his feet upon a carpet-covered ottoman, leaning
back, and if not in physical slumber, at least in that inertia of the
mind which denotes failing physical faculties and marks a slumber more
complete than that of shut eyes and stertorous breathing. Apparently he
was very old, for his hair was thin and nearly white, as it showed from
beneath the colored silk handkerchief thrown loosely over the back of
his head; his skin had that shrivelled and wrinkled appearance, denoting
that the life-fluids had been exhausted beneath it; his eyes, when
opened, had that white opacity more melancholy than apparent blindness,
because it shows a sight which after all takes in and recognizes
nothing; and his thin lips had that constant tremulous motion which
indicates a continual desire to speak, with scarcely the power of doing
so and with little more than the remnants of a mind left to dictate what
shall be uttered. John Crawford was, in short, a miserable human wreck,
all its pride, beauty and power shorn and swept away, and drifting
helplessly on to that lee-shore which is called death.

There was one peculiar feature of his situation which has not yet been
named, and yet it was the most noticeable of all connected with him.
From head to foot, sleeping or waking, at all times and under all
circumstances, his nervous system was shaking and shivering, keeping the
head in that continual quiver which is so melancholy to behold because
it suggests involuntary labor that must exhaust and wear out the system,
and making the weak hand so ungovernable that even the cup of tea put to
his mouth required to be held and guided by others to prevent the
contents being spilled and the vessel falling to the floor. Nothing
could be more pitiable, when watched for a considerable time and when
the impression forced itself upon the observer that at no single moment
would that tremor ever grow still until the spoiler had completed his