"Could you be always as spry, Caleb! Your gloves now--I shall need my
own"--and a pair of stalwart knitted mits were forthwith drawn over my
passive hands, in which my fingers nestled undivided and warm.
"Now you look something like going for the doctor! My overcoat,
Caleb--gloves--fur-cape--cane! All hanging near the bed. There, we are
ready now for old Borealis himself, if he chooses to blow! But I
forget--God bless me, you are as pale as the ghost of Pompey, at
Philippi!--Caleb, the Perkins elixir--a glass!--Now, young lady, just
take it down at a gulp. It is the only alcoholic preparation that
Napoleon Bonaparte Burress ever suffered to pass his temperate lips.
Father Matthew does not object to it at all, I am told, on emergencies.
It may be had at this repository very low, either by the gross or
dozen"--speaking the last words mechanically, and he tendered me a small
glass of some nauseous, bittersweet, and potent beverage, that coursed
through my veins like liquid fire.
"Thank you; it is very comforting," I gasped, and, setting the glass
down on the counter, I covered my face with my hands and burst into
tears.
The whole forlornness of my outcast and eleemosynary condition rushed
over me simultaneously with the flood of warmth caused by the Perkins
elixir, which nerved me the next moment for the encounter with the
elements.
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