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CHAPTER XIX.

There is no creature loves me;
And, if I die, no soul will pity me:
Nay, wherefore should they?-
There is my purse.

SHAKSPEARE.

IT was just three years since Augustus had left his native isle to sail for India, when he returned to enjoy, in the friendship of his family, and the regard of Jessie, the fruits of his toils, dangers, and anxieties.

His success in India had been great. His skill in the honourable profession necessity had thrown him into was rewarded by unparalleled success, and the application he gave to his business. secured every patient he once had attended, and gave him a connexion that

very cheerfully and liberally rewarded his knowledge and assiduity.

Amongst those who were his patients was an old gentleman who had gone abroad at an early life, and who had now amassed many lacks of rupees. This gentleman had enjoyed a good state of health, and was on the eve of returning home, when, in a hunting party with which he had engaged, having been severely bruised, an operation was performed on him by Augustus that blasted the hopes of an heir. But the patient got well again, and it is probable might have lived for many years, had the philosophy of his mind been equal to the pressure of despair with which he was visited; but he sunk under the load, and found relief only in the company of his physician Doctor Stuart.

It was by a reciprocity of confidence that, when both were seated one after

noon in the most familiar converse, the doctor gave Mr. Jack, that was the patient's name, an account of his family and his father's misfortunes. The picture drew tears from Mr. Jack's eyes, and gave the doctor an elevation of character, that even his practice had not conferred on him. Mr. Jack, whose health daily declined, notwithstanding the skill and industry of his physician, took an opportunity which the dual number offered him, to tell Stuart, that having left Scotland when a boy, and having heard of the deaths successively of his father, mother, brother, and one sister he had, and all his other relations having very good fortunes of their own, he was not solicitous to make a will. He purposed to die intestate, but he would not die without an heir; and, accordingly, having invited a large company of his friends to dine with him, he was carried

out of his bed and placed in a chair at the head of his table, the honours of which he was for the last time now to perform.

When the cloth had been removed, he called all the company to witness, that, "as a dying man, he bequeathed, verbally, his whole property to Doctor Stuart, and his sister Eliza ;" and with that, taking from his pocket the keys of his iron chest and bureau, he put them into Augustus's hands, praying as he raised them to the ceiling of the room, that "Heaven would give his heirs health to enjoy the fruits of a poor dying man's care and toil."

*

As soon as Mr. Jack had made this speech, and willed his property, and prayed a benison upon his heirs, he sunk back into his chair, and was carried speechless to his bed, where he lingered some three weeks or longer, and then gave up the ghost;

leaving the doctor and Eliza in the undisputed possession of an immense fortune.

The sudden and unexpected acquisition of so much wealth, as it raised him above the laborious practice he had conducted so honourably for three years, determined Augustus to return to Europe with the first fleet, and leave to his successor the toils of business, whilst he hastened to enjoy the blessings of friendship, love, and home, in the company of his dear sister, and the embraces of his faithful, constant Jessie; and home he came, nor halted longer than he could after his arrival in England, till he got to Edina's lofty site, and saw his father and sister.

The arrival of Augustus was indeed a glad day to Mr. Stuart and Eliza; they both saw a friend; they hailed the presence of Augustus, as that of a son and a brother, and Eliza positively

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