"I am sick, Phoebe, very sick--it will be over directly. Don't call your mother--don't disturb any one; let them stay with the young gentleman." With great difficulty, assisted by the girl, whose station in the house, without being altogether so exalted as that of an humble companion, was yet, at least in her own estimation, far removed from that of a menial--the young lady made her way to her apartment; when the impulse that had supported her energies through a scene of distress for so long a time, passed away, and was succeeded by prostration both of mind and body--by shuddering chills and assaults of partial insensibility, that terminated in fits of weeping, and these again in deep dejection of spirits, such as of late years had been a more prevailing characteristic than any other. CHAPTER IX. Whither shall I go now? O Lucian!--to thy ridiculous purgatory,--to find Alexander the Great cobbling shoes, Pompey tagging points, and Julius Cæsar making hair-buttons, Hannibal selling blacking, Augustus crying garlic, Charlemagne selling lists by the dozen, and King Pepin crying apples in a cart drawn with one horse?---- Then here's an end of me; farewell, daylight; And, oh! contemptible physic!---- WEBSTER--_Vittoria Corombona_. Conducted by the old woman, an heir-loom dependant in the Captain's family, whom Miss Loring had designated by the familiar and somewhat endearing title of Aunt Rachel, the grim-faced stranger bore the young painter to a chamber, where he was laid upon a couch, breathing forth occasional groans, but still insensible. His bearer, having thus finished what might have been considered his peculiar charge, lifted up his eyes, and looked around him, not however with any intention of departing. On the contrary, his rude indifference seemed gradually to have melted away, and been succeeded by an anxious wish to render further services to the youth, or at least to be assured they should be rendered by others as capable as himself. He fixed his eyes upon the physician, as if to determine the amount of his professional ability by such outward manifestations of wisdom as might be traced in his visage and person; and the result was so little to his satisfaction that he resolved to remain in the apartment, to give the physician the benefit of his own counsels.