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Show 80 UNCJ_,J:: TOM'S CABIN: OH., "At :my rate," she said, 11 dear Cousin, do love poor Dodo, and be kind to him, for my sa kc ! " " I could love anything, for your sake, dear Cousin ; for I realJy think you arc the loveliest creature that I ever saw!~~ And Hcnriquc spoke with an earnestness that fl~shcd _Ius handsome face. Eva. received it with perfect s1mphmty, Without even a change of feature; merely saying, "I'm glad you feel so, dear Henrique! I hope you will remember." The dinner-hell put an end to the interview. CHAPTER XXIV. FORESIIADOWI!\OS. 'fwo days after this, A !fred St. Clare and Augustine parted ; and Eva, who bad been stimulated, by the society of her young cousin, to exertions beyond her strength, began to fail rapidly. St. Clare was at last willing to call in medical advicc,-a thing from which he had always shrunk, hecauso it was the admission of an unwelcome truth. But, for a day or two, Eva was so unwell as to be confined to the house ; and the doctor was called. Marie St. Clare had taken no notice of the child's gradually decaying health and strength, because she was completely absorbed in studying out two or three new forms of disease to which she believed she herself was a victim. It was tho first principle of Marie's belief that nobody over was or could he so great a sufferer as herself; and, therefore, she always repelled quite indignantly any suggestion that any one around her could be sick. She was always sure, in such a case, that LIFE AMONG 'filE LOWT,Y. 81 it was notl1ing but laziness, or want of energy; and that, if they hac! had tho suffering she had, they would soon know tlw diflCrcncc. 1\liss Ophelia had sororal times tried to awaken her maternal fears about Eva; but to no avail. u I don't sec as anything ails the child," she woulU say; "she runs about, :mel pbys." u But she has a cough." "Cough! you don't need to tell me about a cough. I 'vo always been subject to a cough, all my clays. When I was of Eva's age, they thought I was in a. consumption. Night after night, M<ttnmy used to sit up with mo. 0 ! Eva's cough is not anything." " But she gets weak, and is short-breathed." "Law! I 've had that, years and years; it's only a. nervous affection.'' (l But she sweats so, nights! " "Well, I have, these ten years. Very often, night after night, my clothes will be wringing wet. There won't he a dry thread in my night-clothes, and tho sheets will he so that Mammy ha.q to hang them up to dry! Eva does n't sweat anything like that!" :Miss Ophelia shut her mouth for a season. But, now that E''" wa.• fairly and visibly prostrated, and a doctor called, J\fario, all on a sudden, took a new turn. ''She know it," she said; "she always felt it, that she was destined to bo tho most miserable of mothers. Hero she was, with her wretched health, and her only darling child going down to tho grave before her eyes; "-and ~fr~ric routed up Mammy nights, and rumpussed and scolded, with more energy than over, all day, on the strength of this now misery. |