"
Four years after this conversation took place, the event happened, at
the possibility of which the Town-Clerk had hinted; and Mrs. Gray
presented her husband with an infant daughter. But good and evil are
strangely mingled in this sublunary world. The fulfilment of his anxious
longing for posterity was attended with the loss of his simple and
kind-hearted wife; one of the most heavy blows which fate could inflict
on poor Gideon, and, his house was made desolate even by the event which
had promised for months before to add new comforts to its humble roof.
Gray felt the shock as men of sense and firmness feel a decided blow,
from the effects of which they never hope again fully to raise
themselves. He discharged the duties of his profession with the same
punctuality as ever, was easy, and even to appearance, cheerful in his
intercourse with society; but the sunshine of existence was gone. Every
morning he missed the affectionate charges which recommended to him to
pay attention to his own health while he was labouring to restore that
blessing to his patients. Every evening, as he returned from his weary
round, it was without the consciousness of a kind and affectionate
reception from one eager to tell, and interested to hear, all the little
events of the day. His whistle, which used to arise clear and strong so
soon as Middlemas steeple was in view, was now for ever silenced, and
the rider's head drooped, while the tired horse, lacking the stimulus of
his master's hand and voice, seemed to shuffle along as if it
experienced a share of his despondency.
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