my literary offspring.  The little children of my brain may be weakly enough, and may be sadly in want of a helping hand to aid them in their first attempts at walking on the stage of this great world; but, at any rate, they are not borrowed children.  The members of my own literary family are indeed increasing so fast as to render the very idea of borrowing quite out of the question, and to suggest serious apprehension that I may not have done adding to the large book-population, on my own sole responsibility, even yet.

AFTER DARK.

Leaves from Leah’s diary.

26th February, 1827.—­The doctor has just called for the third time to examine my husband’s eyes.  Thank God, there is no fear at present of my poor William losing his sight, provided he can be prevailed on to attend rigidly to the medical instructions for preserving it.  These instructions, which forbid him to exercise his profession for the next six months at least, are, in our case, very hard to follow.  They will but too probably sentence us to poverty, perhaps to actual want; but they must be borne resignedly, and even thankfully, seeing that my husband’s forced cessation from work will save him from the dreadful affliction of loss of sight.  I think I can answer for my own cheerfulness and endurance, now that we know the worst.  Can I answer for our children also?  Surely I can, when there are only two of them.  It is a sad confession to make, but now, for the first time since my marriage, I feel thankful that we have no more.

17th.—­A dread came over me last night, after I had comforted William as well as I could about the future, and had heard him fall off to sleep, that the doctor had not told us the worst.  Medical men do sometimes deceive their patients, from what has always seemed to me to be misdirected kindness of heart.  The mere suspicion that I had been trifled with on the subject of my husband’s illness, caused me such uneasiness, that I made an excuse to get out, and went in secret to the doctor.  Fortunately, I found him at home, and in three words I confessed to him the object of my visit.

He smiled, and said I might make myself easy; he had told us the worst.

“And that worst,” I said, to make certain, “is, that for the next six months my husband must allow his eyes to have the most perfect repose?”

“Exactly,” the doctor answered.  “Mind, I don’t say that he may not dispense with his green shade, indoors, for an hour or two at a time, as the inflammation gets subdued.  But I do most positively repeat that he must not employ his eyes.  He must not touch a brush or pencil; he must not think of taking another likeness, on any consideration whatever, for the next six months.  His persisting in finishing those two portraits, at the time when his eyes first began to fail, was the real cause of all the bad symptoms that we have had to combat ever since.  I warned him (if you remember, Mrs. Kerby?) when he first came to practice in our neighborhood.”