When I turned I saw that the child had thrown herself by the side of her father; he was moaning, but the sobs had already ceased. I felt his forehead and hands, and found that he was in a raging fever. I looked around, the place was miserable enough, and utterly unfit to be a sick room. The _concierge_ shall be gratified, thought I, they shall leave to-night; and sending the little girl out for a carriage, I was left alone with my patient.
His face was much flushed, his eyes wild, and all my efforts to keep him quiet were vain; I was obliged to let him talk. I soon gathered his whole history from his incoherent words. There was nothing very new in it, it was the old story of a respectable father, with a prejudice against the fine arts; of a weary struggle first for fame, and then, forsooth, for bread; of a foolish marriage with a girl as poor as himself, of children born to want and misery, of unappreciated talent, etc. There was an unfinished picture on the easel, and several others about the room; the poor man's eager eye followed my movement as I looked at them, and he sank back comforted as I praised his works. Heaven forgive, the charitable falsehoods! for that glance sufficed to show me that I was comforting one of those wretched beings who had just talent enough to conceive great things, without the power of executing them, which is about the saddest of sad states.
The child soon returned, and I caused my poor invalid to be transported to the Hotel Dieu, until I could make some other arrangement for him; his little girl I put under the care of an honest woman who lived hard by, where she slept; the days she spent by her poor father's bed. That bed he never left, the hard struggle had been too much for him; the death of his wife and child had been too severe a blow to the weak, loving, unfortunate man. Brain fever soon declared itself and one dark, sad December day, his little daughter and I followed his poor coffin to the nearest cemetery. The child was very quiet, but her tearless eyes were unutterably sad.
I interested my friends in the sad story, and no happy mother, as she drew her own dear ones to her heart, refused to help this bereaved one. So, we made up a purse for her, and the other day I took her to a good school where she is to remain until she is old enough to support herself, poor little orphan! As I was about to leave her, she turned and said in her quiet, undemonstrative way, a few words which I shall not put down here, but which caused me to turn toward the door rather quickly, and to pretend that I had a bad cold in my head.