While all the gossip world was thus filled with talk and rumor,
poor Wolfert lay sick and sorrowfully in his bed, bruised in body
and sorely beaten down in mind. His wife and daughter did all they
could to bind up his wounds, both corporal and spiritual. The good
old dame never stirred from his bedside, where she sat knitting
from morning till night, while his daughter busied herself about
him with the fondest care. Nor did they lack assistance from
abroad. Whatever may be said of the desertion of friends in
distress, they had no complaint of the kind to make. Not an old
wife of the neighborhood but abandoned her work to crowd to the
mansion of Wolfert Webber, to inquire after his health and the
particulars of his story. Not one came, moreover, without her
little pipkin of pennyroyal, sage, balm, or other herb tea,
delighted at an opportunity of signalizing her kindness and her
doctorship. What drenchings did not the poor Wolfert undergo, and
all in vain! It was a moving sight to behold him wasting away day
by day, growing thinner and thinner and ghastlier and ghastlier,
and staring with rueful visage from under an old patchwork
counterpane, upon the jury of matrons kindly assembled to sigh and
groan and look unhappy around him.
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