"
"May Heaven in mercy bless you!" cried Mrs. Robson, dropping on her
knees. Thaddeus raised her with gushing eyes; having replaced her in
a seat, he left the room to recover himself.
According to the count's desire, Mrs. Watts called in the evening,
with an estimate of the expenses attending the child's interment.
Fees and every charge collected, the demand on his benevolence was
six pounds. The sum proved rather more than he expected, but he paid
it without a demur, leaving himself only a few shillings.
He considered what he had done as a fulfilment of a duty so
indispensible, that it must have been accomplished even by the
sacrifice of his uttermost farthing. Gratitude and distress held
claims upon him which he never allowed his own necessities to
transgress. All gifts of mere generosity were beyond his power, and,
consequently, in a short time beyond his wish; but to the cry of want
and wretchedness his hand and heart were ever open. Often has he
given away to a starving child in the street that pittance which was
to purchase his own scant meal; and he never felt such neglect of
himself a privation. To have turned his eyes and ears from the little
mendicant would have been the hardest struggle; and the remembrance
of such inhumanity would have haunted him on his pillow. This being
the disposition of Count Sobieski, he found it more difficult to bear
calamity, when viewing another's poverty he could not relieve, than
when assailed himself by penury, in all its other shapes of
desolation.
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