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Hill; but her strength soon failed her; she leaned against a wall, and her
head sunk on her bosom, while her pallid cheek became still more white. I
went up to her and offered my services. She hardly looked up--"You can do
me no good," she replied; "I must go to the hospital; if I do not die
before I get there."
There were still a few hackney-coaches accustomed to stand about the
streets, more truly from habit than for use. I put her in one of these, and
entered with her that I might secure her entrance into the hospital. Our
way was short, and she said little; except interrupted ejaculations of
reproach that he had left her, exclamations on the unkindness of some of
his friends, and hope that she would find him alive. There was a simple,
natural earnestness about her that interested me in her fate, especially
when she assured me that her husband was the best of men,--had been so,
till want of business during these unhappy times had thrown him into bad
company. "He could not bear to come home," she said, "only to see our
children die. A man cannot have the patience a mother has, with her own
flesh and blood."
We were set down at St. Bartholomew's, and entered the wretched precincts
of the house of disease. The poor creature clung closer to me, as she saw
with what heartless haste they bore the dead from the wards, and took them
into a room, whose half-opened door displayed a number of corpses, horrible
to behold by one unaccustomed to such scenes. We were directed to the ward
where her husband had been first taken, and still was, the nurse said, if
alive. My companion looked eagerly from one bed to the other, till at the
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