Page:Stories after Nature.pdf/72



HERE lived in England two friends. They were both of them in their freshest youth; but unprovoked and irremediable sorrow fixed upon the heart of one; and he, being of a most tender and susceptible nature, it soon brought him from the robustness of youth to sickness and imbecility. It became necessary that he should go into Italy for the restoration of his health, and he went to the pleasant Florence. The cause of his sorrow still continuing, like a jagged iron in his heart, it rusted and corroded, and he soon died a martyr to it.

His friend ever after became more silent and melancholy; and though his love for him was great before they went from England, yet having felt his gentle dependence upon him in his illness and his dying days, it became greater after his death; for he felt that he never could do