Page:The last man (Second Edition 1826 Volume 2).djvu/288

 ment and reflection; even slight convulsion of her child's features shook her frame—if he moved, she dreaded the instant crisis; if he remained still, she saw death in his torpor, and the cloud on her brow darkened.

The poor little thing's fever encreased towards night. The sensation is most dreary, to use no stronger term, with which one looks forward to passing the long hours of night beside a sick bed, especially if the patient be an infant, who cannot explain its pain, and whose flickering life resembles the wasting flame of the watch-light,

With eagerness one turns toward the east, with angry impatience one marks the unchequered darkness; the crowing of a cock, that sound of glee during-day timeduring day-time [sic], comes wailing and untuneable—the creaking of rafters, and slight