Page:The Adventures of David Simple (1904).djvu/276

 with tolerable patience; but my father's last words, "Take care of my wife!" continually resounded in my ears; and I saw daily before my eyes this wife — this mother — and found myself utterly void of any power to save her from destruction; and now fruitless lamentations were the only refuge left me.

"'When I was almost driven to the utmost despair, at last, by often revolving in my mind various schemes to extricate myself out of the deplorable condition of seeing a tender parent languish away her little remains of life in want of necessaries, I recollected the young Duke de ; who, you know, sir, left the academy about two months after we came to it. The little while he was there with us he was particularly civil to me; and I resolved now, as my last effort, to write him my case in the most pathetic terms I could think of, and try if I could prevail on him to deliver me out of my misery. It was some time before I obtained an answer, and when it came it was perfectly in the style of a great man to his dependant: however, at the bottom he told me he had procured a place for me, which would bring in about fifty louis-d'or a year; if I would accept this, I must come immediately to Paris. "'Though this was not a thing fit to be offered a gentleman, yet it was not a time for me to consider my station in life; this would be some little support to my mother, and I did not fear bustling in the world for myself. I was going to Paris when I was taken ill of a violent fever in the house where you found me. I had but just enough in my pocket to have carried me to my journey's end; this was soon spent in sickness, and I was in a place where I was an utter stranger, confined to my bed, without a penny to help myself; and though death would have been very welcome to me, as it would have put