Here, the broken man who had until now sat listening in what might almost be called a sullen attention, suddenly lifted up his head, looked round the room where he sat, and through the large cheerful window upon the branches of the trees and the blue unclouded sky; and, suddenly, even his heart seemed reached. He rose from his chair, he sat down again, he looked conscious, uneasy, abashed. It was so long since he had felt or expressed any grateful or amiable sentiment, that he was almost ashamed of what he now experienced, as if it had been a weakness. "Pray have the kindness to go on," he said at last. "It was some days before I learned much more of the history of my poor young invalid, but one day when I came to see her, I found a very respectable looking woman, though evidently not belonging to the higher class, sitting with her. She was a person whose appearance would have been almost repulsive from the deep injuries her face had received--burned when a child, I believe--if it had not been for the sense and goodness that pervaded her expression. Her eyes were singularly intelligent, sweet, and kind. "I found she was the wife of the baker--she, who had once been nursery-maid in your family. The only friend the poor young creature seemed to have left in the world, and the only person from whom she could bear, as it afterwards appeared, to receive an obligation. This excellent person it was, who advanced the guinea a-week, which the laws of the institution required should be contributed by a patient. "When she took her leave I followed her, to inquire further particulars about my patient. She then told me, that the sister had died about three years before, leaving a heavy debt to be discharged by the one remaining; consisting of her funeral expenses, which were considerable, though every thing was conducted with all the simplicity compatible with decency; and of the charges of the medical man who had attended her: a low unprincipled person, who had sent in an enormous bill, which there were no means of checking, and which, nevertheless, the high-spirited sister resolved to pay. But the first thing she did, was to insure her own life for a certain sum, so as to guard against the burden under which she herself labored, being in its turn imposed upon others.