I presently saw that it held a miniature of a fair
haired, blue--eyed Scandinavian girl; but apparently he could not see
it, from the increasing dimness of his eyes, which seemed to distress
him greatly. After a still minute, during which no sound was heard but
his own heavy breathing, he again began to speak very rapidly, but no
one in the room could make out what he said. I listened attentively--it
struck me is being like--I was certain of it--it was Swedish, which in
health he had entirely forgotten, but now in his dying moments vividly
remembered. Alas, it was a melancholy and a moving sight, to perceive
all the hitherto engrossing thoughts and incidents of his youth and
manhood, all save the love of one dear object, suddenly vanish from the
tablet of his memory, ground away and abrased, as it were, by his great
agony--or like worthless rubbish, removed from above some beautiful
ancient inscription, which for ages it had hid, disclosing in all their
primeval freshness, sharp cut into his dieing heart, the long
smothered, but never to be obliterated impressions of his early,
childhood. I could plainly distinguish the name Agatha, whenever he
peered with fast glazing eyes on the miniature. All this while a nice
little brown child was lying playing with his watch and seals on the bed
beside him, while a handsome coloured girl, a slight young creature,
apparently its mother, sat on the other side of the dying man,
supporting his head on her lap, and wetting his mouth every now and then
with a cloth dipped in brandy.
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