The physician prescribed for Lucy. He saw her again, and would have seen her repeatedly, but the family left town suddenly, in consequence of the death of a near relative, and the very belief that nothing could be done for her, circumstanced as she was, contributed to her being forgotten. The human mind has a natural desire to blot out from memory objects that are hopeless. Lucy went to Mary’s humble lodging, and fancied, for a day or two, she was much better. She had the repose which such illness so naturally seeks. Mary’s room was on the ground floor of a small house, in a little street leading off “Paradise-row.” The old pensioners frequently passed the window; she could hear the beat of the Asylum drums; sometimes they awoke her out of her sleep in the morning; but she liked them none the less for that. Mary put away her poor master’s hat (which she brushed every morning), his sword and sash, and his gloves, in her own box, when Lucy came, least the sight of them should make her melancholy; but Lucy saw their marks upon the wall, and begged she would replace them there. She gave her little store, amounting to a few pounds, into the nurse’s hands, who spent it scrupulously for her—and yet not prudently; for she ran after every nostrum, and insisted upon Lucy’s swallowing them all. Sometimes the fading girl would creep along in the sunshine, and so changed was she, in little more than a year, that no one recognised her, though some would look after her, and endeavour to call to mind who it was she so strongly resembled.