CHAPTER XXXVI.
TOBIAS’S MOTHER AWAKENS OLD RECOLLECTIONS.
Poor Tobias still remains upon his bed of sickness. The number of hours at the expiration of which the medical man had expected him to recover were nearly gone. In Colonel Jeffery’s parlour three persons, besides himself, were assembled. These three were his friend the captain, Sir Richard Blunt, and Mrs. Ragg. The lady was sitting with a not over clean handkerchief at her eyes, and keeping up a perpetual motion with her knee, as though she were nursing some fractious baby, and Mrs. Ragg had been used of late to go out as a monthly nurse occasionally, which, perhaps, accounted for this little peculiarity.
“Now, madam,” said the colonel, “you quite understand, I hope, that you are not to mention to any living soul the fact of your
