Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. I.djvu/179

 hair, and a pair of deep-set, blue eyes full of feeling and fervour. He stood there silent and dressed in black, in the middle of the room, with the appearance almost of a clergyman, and with his penetrating, earnest eyes riveted upon me. I do not know how it was, but it was so, that from the first moment I saw him I felt confidence in and affection towards him. I advanced towards him, took his hand between both mine, looked up in his pale, grave countenance and said, “help me!” Thus helpless, feeble, and poor, had I now for some time felt myself to be, under the power as it were of a strange suffering, which crippled me both in soul and body, and alone too, in a strange land, without any other support than the powers of my own soul and body to sustain me through the work which I had undertaken!

He replied in a deep bass voice, speaking slowly as if with difficulty—but ah, my child, it seems like vanity in me to say what he replied; but let me seem vain for this once—he said, “Miss Bremer, no one can have read your Neighbours, and not wish to help you! And I hope to be able to help you!”

I wept; I kissed the thin, bony hands, which I held, as I would have kissed those of a fatherly benefactor; I felt myself also like a child.

He gave me a little white powder, which looked like nothing, and which I was to take before I went to bed. I took it; slept excellently, and the next day—ah! what feelings. All malady was gone. I felt myself as if sustained by spirit-wings; a nameless sensation of peace and health pervaded my whole being. I went out. I did not feel my body. I rejoiced in the blueness of heaven, in the leaping of the billows. I could see that the world was beautiful. I had not felt thus for a long time, and the certainty that I had now a remedy which would support my still vigorous power and will, made me unspeakably happy. I thanked God. And