"She is so ill, St. John."
"Ill or well, she would always be plain. The grace and harmony of
beauty are quite wanting in those features."
On the third day I was better; on the fourth, I could speak, move,
rise in bed, and turn. Hannah had brought me some gruel and dry
toast, about, as I supposed, the dinner-hour. I had eaten with
relish: the food was good -- void of the feverish flavour which
had hitherto poisoned what I had swallowed. When she left me, I
felt comparatively strong and revived: ere long satiety of repose
and desire for action stirred me. I wished to rise; but what could
I put on? Only my damp and bemired apparel; in which I had slept
on the ground and fallen in the marsh. I felt ashamed to appear
before my benefactors so clad. I was spared the humiliation.
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