A deep groan shook the whole frame of the unfortunate young poet at this statement--a groan which in its intensity might have separated soul and body. "Let me go--let me go!" he cried, raising himself for a moment, and then sinking back again in his chair in a passive state. His mother seemed a little softened by his agitation, though she made no comment on it, but continued her narrative as if no interruption had taken place. "Money took me to a new master; he was richer than the first; he bound my heart to him by the profusion of his money. He was old and withered, but his gold and silver reflected so brightly on his face, I came to think him handsome; he was your father; you were born; after your birth I think I even loved him. I urged him to marry me; he listened; he even promised--yes, marriage and money--money--they were almost in my very grasp. I was sure--sure--when he went to England to arrange some business, he said; he wrote fondly for a while; I lived in an elysium; money and an honorable marriage were my own. I had not one doubt; but he ceased to write to me--all at once he ceased; had it been a gradual drawing off, my brain would not have reeled as it did. At last, when fear and anxiety had almost thrown me into a fever, a letter came. It announced in a few words that your father was married to a young, virtuous, and wealthy lady; he had settled a small annuity on me for life, and never wished to see or hear from me again. A violent illness seized me then; it was a kind of burning fever. All things around me seemed to dazzle, and assume the form of gold and silver; I struggled and writhed to grasp the illusion; they were forced to tie my hands--to bind me down in my bed. I recovered at last, but I had grown all at once old, withered, stricken in mind and body by that sickness. For a long time--for years--I lived as if in a lingering dream; I had no keen perceptions of life; my wishes had little energy; my thoughts were confused and wandering; even the love of money and the want of money failed to stir me into any kind of action. I have something of the same kind of feeling still," she said, raising her hand to her head. "The burning fever into which I was thrown when your father's love vanished from me, is often here even yet, though its duration is brief; but it is sufficient to make me incapable of any exertion by which I could make money. I have trusted to you; I have hoped that you might be the means of raising me from my poverty; I have long hoped to see the gold and silver of your earning. I did not say much at first, when I saw you turning a poet; I had heard that poetry was the sure high-road to poverty, but I said little then. I was hardly able to judge and know rightly what you should do when you commenced writing in your boyhood; but my head is a little cooler now; the scorching fire of the money your father tempted me with, and then withdrew, is quenched a little by years.