for _my_ sake, if the selfishness of the request
should not deter you, for _my_ sake remain with us some time longer."

I protested most warmly, as I had all reason to do, that for years past
I had never known time pass on so happily; that in the peaceful calm
we lived, I had tasted a higher enjoyment than all the most buoyant
pleasures of healthier and younger days had ever given me. "But,"--I
believe I tried to smile as I spoke,--"but recollect, Sir Gordon, I have
got my billet: the doctors have told me to go, and die, at Naples. What
a shock to science if I should remain, to live, at Como!"

"Do so, my dearest friend," said he, grasping my hands within both of
his, while the tears swam in his eyes; "I cannot--I dare not--I have
not strength to tell you, all that your compliance with this wish will
confer on me Spare me this anguish, and do not leave us." As he uttered
these words he left me, his emotion too great to let me reply.

The sick man's selfishness would say, that his anxiety is about that
wasting malady, whose ravages are even more plainly seen than felt.

Turn the matter over how I will, I cannot reconcile this eager anxiety
for my remaining with any thing but a care for myself. It is clear he
thinks me far worse than I can consent to acknowledge. I do not disguise
from myself the greater lassitude I experience after a slight exertion,
a higher tension of the nervous system, and an earlier access of that
night fever, which, like the darkness of the coming winter, creeps daily
on, shortening the hours of sunlight, and ushering in a deeper and more
solemn gloom; but I watch these symptoms as one already prepared for
their approach, and feel grateful that their coming has not clouded the
serenity with which I hope to journey to the last.

Kind old man! I would that I were his son, that I could feel my rightful
claim to the affection he lavishes on me; but for _his_ sake it is
better as it is! And Miss Howard--Lucy, let me call her, since I am
permitted so to accost her--what a blessing I should have felt such a
sister to be, so beautiful, so kind, so gently feminine! for that is
the true charm. This, too, is better as it is. How could I take leave of
life, if I were parting with such enjoyments?

She is greatly changed since we came here. Every day seems to gain
something over the malady she laboured under. She is no longer faint and
easily wearied, but able to take even severe exercise without fatigue;