Page:The Adventures of David Simple (1904).djvu/173

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Chapter IX
141

was before to be rude) send immediately for what they desired; and when he had got it, ran upstairs with the utmost joy. The young woman took no thought for herself, but used all her endeavours to make her brother get something down to revive him: it was with great difficulty he could swallow; for his weakness was so great, he could hardly move. He had not yet spoke; but at last, by the help of the refreshment he had taken, he got strength enough to say, "I hope, sir, I shall live to acknowledge your goodness, though I am now utterly unable to do it." He then turned to his sister, and begged her, for God's sake, to drink something herself; for he was certain she must want it. He had not strength enough to go on, but looked some-times at her, and expressed his amazement at the unexpected relief they had found. Sometimes he looked on David with an air of softness and gratitude, in which our hero's sensibility read as much as any thing he could have said. The poor young woman, who had a long time stifled her own sorrows, lest she should add to her brother's, found now such a struggle of variety of passions labouring in her mind at once; the tenderness she had for her brother, the joy that suddenly rushed on her to see him a little relieved, and the gratitude she felt for her generous benefactor, that it quite overcame her; she was unable to speak, or to refrain any longer from bursting into a flood of tears, which was the only means she had left to express her thoughts.

David, who had more of what Shakespeare calls the milk of human kind, than any other among all the children of men, perceived by her manner of behaviour all that must pass in her mind, and was much less able to comfort her, than what is called a good-humoured man would have been; for his sensations were too strong to leave him the free use of his reason, and he stood some time without know-