Page:The Adventures of David Simple (1904).djvu/224

 that condition, and at last prevailed so far on her good-nature that she consented we should stay in her house, provided we would go up into the garret, and be contented with one room; for truly she could not spare more to such creatures; and if we could not in a week find some method of paying her, she was resolved no longer to be imposed on, because we had found out she could not help being compassionate, with many hints how happy we were to have met with her, for there were very few people in this hard-hearted world could arrive at such a pitch of goodness. To these terms we were forced to submit, and get upstairs into that hole which you found us in. She did not fail coming up once a day to inform us how much she wanted her money, although she knew it was impossible for us to pay her. "The poor woman who had relieved us last, spared us one sixpence more; but she happened to get a service, and go into the country, so that now all our hopes were lost. I have really several times, during this dreadful week, wished Valentine dead, that I might not see him thus languish away in misery before my face. I sat up with him the whole time. I will not shock a nature so tender as yours, sir, with the repetition of what horrors passed in my mind, between my then present sufferings and the expectation of seeing my dear brother, in his miserable condition, soon turned into the street. The time was just expired, when she was come up with a resolution of turning us out of doors, when the noise she made brought you up to see and relieve our misery. What little things there were in that dismal room when first we went up, she by degrees took away, under the pretence of wanting them for some use or other, till she left us nothing at all; and a poor creature ill, as Valentine was, could not get even the coarsest clothes to cover him. I had