"
Light as a pithless nut seemed this little creature in my strong,
energetic arms, and yet his mother staggered beneath his weight.
She insisted, however, after a time, on resuming her charge of him, as
it was proper she should do, and then sat beside me, delivering herself
of a long string of complaints and grievances, after the fashion of all
second-rate, solitary people when secure of sympathy.
She overrated my benevolence on this occasion, however. I was lost in
painful reverie, and scarcely understood a word of her communication,
which I was obliged at last to cut short, for I had resolved, now that
my strength was recruited, on the only visible course remaining to me--I
would seek Miss Lamarque, confide to her the statement of Christian
Garth, relate to her what my eyes had seen, and be guided by her
determination and judgment, with those of her brother, a man of sense, I
saw, and whose instincts, no doubt, would all be sharpened by the
jeopardy of his children.
She was sitting up in her state-room when I knocked at the door, still
in her berth, the lower one--from which the upper shelf had been lifted
so as to afford her room and air--looking very Oriental and handsomer
than I ever had seen her, in her bright Madras night-turban and fine
white cambric wrapper richly trimmed.
Her face broke into smiles as soon as she beheld me; and she invited
me, in a way not to be resisted, so resolute and yet so kindly was it,
to partake with her of the hot coffee her maid was just handing her in
bed, in a small gilded cup, a portion of the service on the stand beside
her.
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