here he had crept to die like a beggar!  I looked at the flock bed, and felt my heart grow sick within me.  The corpse of a man, apparently about sixty, lay stretched upon it, and on his hollow and emaciated features the hand of death had printed the ravages of many days.  The veins had ceased to give even the appearance of life to the discoloured skin; the eyelids were deep sunken, and the whole countenance was (and none but those accustomed to gaze on the face of the dead can understand me) utterly expressionless.  But if a sight like this was sickening and horrible, what shall I say of the miserable being to whom a temporary oblivion was giving strength for renewed agony?  He had apparently been sitting at the foot of the corpse, and, as the torpor of heavy slumber stole over him, had sunk forward, his hand still retaining the hand of the dead man.  His face was hid; but his figure, and the thick curls of dark hair, bespoke early youth.  I judged him at most, to be two-and-twenty.  I began my task of measuring the body, and few can tell the shudder which thrilled my frame as the carpenter’s rule passed those locked hands—­the vain effort of the living still to claim kindred with the dead!  It was over, and I stole from the room, cautiously and silently as I entered.  Once, and only once, I turned to gaze at the melancholy group.  There lay the corpse, stiff and unconscious; there sat the son, in an unconsciousness yet more terrible, since it could not last.  There, pale and tearless, stood the wife of him, who, in his dying hour, cursed her child and his.  How little she dreamed of such a scene when her meek lips first replied to his vows of affection!  How little she dreamed of such a scene when she first led that father to the cradle of his sleeping boy! when they bent together with smiles of affection, to watch his quiet slumber, and catch the gentle breathing of his parted lips!  I had scarcely reached the landing-place before the wretched woman’s hand was laid lightly on my arm to arrest my progress.  Her noiseless step had followed me without my being aware of it.  ‘How soon will your work be done?’ said she, in a suffocated voice.  ‘To-morrow I could be here again,’ answered I.  ‘To-morrow! and what am I to do, if my boy wakes before that time?’ and her voice became louder and hoarse with fear.  ’He will go mad, I am sure he will; his brain will not hold against these horrors.  Oh! that God would hear me!—­that God would hear me! and let that slumber sit on his senses till the sight of the father that cursed him is no longer present to us!  Heaven be merciful to me!’ and with the last words she clasped her hands convulsively, and gazed upwards.  I had known opiates administered to sufferers whose grief for their bereavement almost amounted to madness.  I mentioned this hesitatingly to the widow, and she eagerly caught at it.  ‘Yes! that would do,’ exclaimed she; ’that would do, if I could but get him past that horrible moment!  But stay; I dare not leave him alone as he is, even