She went home rejoicing, having raised fifteen pounds upon a ring that
was worth ninety. The pawnbroker had a notice that it would never be
redeemed--young married ladies who suffer reverse of fortune rarely recover
their footing, but generally slide down, down, down to the uttermost deeps
of poverty.
They were getting ready for that journey to Beckenham, happy in the idea of
escaping from the monotonous unfriendly streets, and the grime and mire
and general dinginess of London life, when an unlooked-for calamity befell
them, and the prospect of release had, for the time at least, to be given
up. Young Lovel fell ill. He was "about his teeth," the woman of the house
said, and tried to make light of the evil. These innocents are subject to
much suffering in this way. He had a severe cold, with a tiresome hacking
cough which rent Clarissa's heart. She sent for a doctor immediately--a
neighbouring practitioner recommended by the landlady--and he came and saw
the child lying in his mother's lap, and the mother young and beautiful
and unhappy, and was melted accordingly, and did all he could to treat the
matter lightly. Yet he was fain, after a few visits, and no progress for
the better, to confess that these little lives hang by a slender thread.
"The little fellow has a noble frame and an excellent constitution," he
said; "I hope we shall save him."
Save him! An icy thrill went through Clarissa's veins.
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