"He does not seem intoxicated, Maria," replied the other, in a voice whose tones corresponded with her appearance; "it is some sudden illness." "One that, I dare say, he is accustomed to," said Maria, without having even taken such a look at the sufferer as would enable her to identify his colour; "he will be well enough after he has slept." "But is the pavement a place for him to sleep on?" rejoined her companion, still gazing towards the miserable object; "and if he should be ill!--why do they not raise him?--Why do they suffer him to injure himself as he does?" The speaker, at the same time that she shrunk in a kind of sensitive horror from this exhibition of human infirmities, now unconsciously stopped, with an interest in the man that she could not controul, and thus compelled Maria to pause also. The crowd had withdrawn from the man, giving him sufficient room to roll over, in evident pain, while they yet stood gazing at him, with that indefinable feeling of curiosity and nerveless sympathy, which characterises man when not called on to act, by emulation, vanity, or the practice of well-doing. No one offered to assist the sufferer, although many said it ought to be done; some spoke of sending for those who monopolized the official charity of the city; many, having satisfied their curiosity, and finding that the moment for action was arriving, quietly withdrew from a trouble that would interfere with their comforts or their business--while a few felt an impulse to aid the man, but hesitated in being foremost in doing that which would be honourable to their feelings, but might not accord with their condition, or might seem as the ostentatious display of unusual benevolence. Where men are congregated, conduct must be regulated by the touchstone of public opinion; and, although it is the fashion of New-York to applaud acts of charity, and to do them too in a particular manner--it is by no means usual to run to the assistance of a fellow creature who is lying in distress on a pavement. {those who monopolized the official charity = in 1821 the only officially supported charitable organization in New York City was the City Dispensary -- municipal aid to others having been cut off in 1817 on the grounds that charity to the poor only made them lazy and improvident} Whatever might be the impulses of the gentleman whom we have mentioned, his attention was too much absorbed by the conversation and manner of the two ladies to regard any thing else, and he followed them across the street, and stopped also when they paused to view the scene. He was inwardly and deeply admiring the most youthful of the females, for the natural and simple display of those very qualities that he forgot himself to exercise, when he was roused with a feeling of something like mortification, by hearing Charlotte exclaim, with a slight glow on her cheek-- "Ah! there is George Morton coming--he surely will not pass the poor man without offering to assist him."