of that fit from which she had just recovered, and said, I would
endeavour by my skill to prevent any more such attacks. She seemed very
much affected with this expression, took my hand, and pressed it to her
lips, saying, "You are too generous! I wish I could live to express my
gratitude--but alas! I perish for want." Then shutting her eyes, she
relapsed into another swoon. Such extremity of distress must have waked
the most obdurate heart to sympathy and compassion; what effect then
must it have had on mine, that was naturally prone to every tender
passion? I ran downstairs, and sent my landlady to a chemist's shop for
some cinnamon water, while I, returning to this unfortunate creature's
chamber, used all the means in my power to bring her to herself; this
aim with much difficulty I accomplished, and made her drink a glass of
the cordial to recruit her spirits: then I prepared a little mulled
red vine and a toast, which having taken, she found herself thoroughly
revived, and informed me, that she had not tasted food for eight and
forty hours before. As I was impatient to know the occasion and nature
of her calamity, she gave me to understand, that she was a woman of
the town by profession; that in the course of her adventures she found
herself dangerously infected with a distemper, to which all of her class
are particularly subject; that her malady gaining ground every day, she
became loathsome to herself and offensive to others: when she resolved
to retire to some obscure corner where she might be cured with as little
noise and expense as possible; that she had accordingly chosen this
place of retreat, and put herself into the hands of an advertising
doctor, who having fleeced her of all the money she had, or could
procure, left her three days ago in a worse condition than that in which
he found her; that except the clothes on her back, she had pawned or
sold everything that belonged to her to satisfy that rapacious quack,
and quiet the clamour of her landlady, who still persisted in her
threats to turn her out into the street. After having moralised upon
these particulars, I proposed that she should lodge in the same room
with me, an expedient that would save some money: and assured her, I
would undertake to cure her as well as my own, during which she should
partake of all the conveniences that I could afford to myself. She
embraced my offer with unfeigned acknowledgment, and I began to put it
in practice immediate