hich to this hour I never pass without a
pang of grief and an inner act of homage to the spirit of that unhappy
girl, in memory of the noble action which she there performed. Suddenly,
as we sate, I grew much worse. I had been leaning my head against her
bosom, and all at once I sank from her arms and fell backwards on the
steps. From the sensations I then had, I felt an inner conviction of the
liveliest kind, that without some powerful and reviving stimulus I should
either have died on the spot, or should at least have sunk to a point of
exhaustion from which all reascent under my friendless circumstances
would soon have become hopeless. Then it was, at this crisis of my fate,
that my poor orphan companion, who had herself met with little but
injuries in this world, stretched out a saving hand to me. Uttering a
cry of terror, but without a moment's delay, she ran off into Oxford
Street, and in less time than could be imagined returned to me with a
glass of port wine and spices, that acted upon my empty stomach, which at
that time would have rejected all solid food, with an instantaneous power
of restoration; and for this glass the generous girl without a murmur
paid out of her humble purse at a time--be it remembered!--when she had
scarcely wherewithal to purchase the bare necessaries of life, and when
she could have no reason to expect that I should ever be able to
reimburse her.

Oh, youthful benefactress! how often in succeeding years, standing in
solitary places, and thinking of thee with grief of heart and perfect
love--how often have I wished that, as in ancient times, the curse of a
father was believed to have a supernatural power, and to pursue its
object with a fatal necessity of self-fulfilment; even so the benediction
of a heart oppressed with gratitude might have a like prerogative, might
have power given to it from above to chase, to haunt, to waylay, to
overtake, to pursue thee into the central darkness of a London brothel,
or (if it were possible) into the darkness of the grave, there to awaken
thee with an authentic message of peace and forgiveness, and of final
reconciliation!

I do not often weep: for not only do my thoughts on subjects connected
with the chief interests of man daily, nay hourly, descend a thousand
fathoms "too deep for tears;" not only does the sternness of my habits of
thought present an antagonism to the feelings which prompt tears--wanting
of necessity to those who, being pr