We first wept, and then talked together. He
related the past; how, when he had thought to cull the flowers or
fruits of life, his hopes had ever been marred by fortune or by
death,--the loss of his father, mother, wife, and child; his reverses
of fortune, and the compulsory sale of his ancestral domain; he told
how he retired to his ruined home, with no other companionship than
that of his mother's old herdsman, who served him without pay, for the
love he bore to his house; and lastly, spoke of the consuming languor
which would sweep him away with the autumnal leaves, and lay him in the
churchyard beside those he had loved so well. His intense imaginative
faculty might be seen strong even in death, and in idea he loved to
endow with a fanciful sympathy the turf and flowers which would blossom
on his grave.
"Do you know what grieves me most?" said he, pointing to the fringe of
little birds which were perched round the top of his bed. "It is to
think that next spring these poor little ones, my latest friends, will
seek for me in vain in the tower.
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