'
Mark Wood was the consumptive labourer whom I mentioned before. He
was now rapidly wearing away. Miss Murray, by her liberality,
obtained literally the blessing of him that was ready to perish;
for though the half-crown could be of very little service to him,
he was glad of it for the sake of his wife and children, so soon to
be widowed and fatherless. After I had sat a few minutes, and read
a little for the comfort and edification of himself and his
afflicted wife, I left them; but I had not proceeded fifty yards
before I encountered Mr. Weston, apparently on his way to the same
abode. He greeted me in his usual quiet, unaffected way, stopped
to inquire about the condition of the sick man and his family, and
with a sort of unconscious, brotherly disregard to ceremony took
from my hand the book out of which I had been reading, turned over
its pages, made a few brief but very sensible remarks, and restored
it; then told me about some poor sufferer he had just been
visiting, talked a little about Nancy Brown, made a few
observations upon my little rough friend the terrier, that was
frisking at his feet, and finally upon the beauty of the weather,
and departed.
I have omitted to give a detail of his words, from a notion that
they would not interest the reader as they did me, and not because
I have forgotten them.
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