Mrs. Taylor I always thought to be rather weak and
untrustworthy, but I found that when WEIGHT was placed upon her, she
was steady as a rock, a systematic and a perfect manager. There was
no doubt in a very short time as to the nature of the disease. It
was typhoid fever, the cause probably being the impure water drunk as
we were coming home. I have no mind to describe what Ellen suffered.
Suffice it to say, that her treatment was soon reduced to watching
her every minute night and day, and administering small quantities of
milk. Her prostration and emaciation were excessive, and without the
most constant attention she might at any moment have slipped out of
our hands. I was like a man shipwrecked and alone in a polar
country, whose existence depends upon one spark of fire, which he
tries to cherish, left glimmering in a handful of ashes. Oh those
days, prolonged to weeks, during which that dreadful struggle lasted-
-days swallowed up with one sole, intense, hungry desire that her
life might be spared!--days filled with a forecast of the blackness
and despair before me if she should depart. I tried to obtain
release from the office. The answer was that nobody could of course
prevent my being away, but that it was not usual for a clerk to be
absent merely because his wife was not well.
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