I sent at once for the doctor, who would give no opinion for a day or two, but meanwhile directed that she was to remain where she was, and take nothing but the lightest food.  Tuesday night passed, and the fever still increased.  I had become very anxious, but I dared not stay with her, for I knew not what might happen if I were absent from my work.  I was obliged to try and think of somebody who would come and help us.  Our friend Taylor, who once was the coal-porter at Somerset House, came into my mind.  He, as I have said when talking about him, was married, but had no children.  To him accordingly I went.  I never shall forget the alacrity with which he prompted his wife to go, and with which she consented.  I was shut up in my own sufferings, but I remember a flash of joy that all our efforts in our room had not been in vain.  I was delighted that I had secured assistance, but I do believe the uppermost thought was delight that we had been able to develop gratitude and affection.  Mrs. Taylor was an “ordinary woman.”  She was about fifty, rather stout, and entirely uneducated.  But when she took charge at our house, all her best qualities found expression.  It is true enough, omnium consensu capax imperii nisi imperasset, but it is equally true that under the pressure of trial and responsibility we are often stronger than when there is no pressure.  Many a man will acknowledge that in difficulty he has surprised himself by a resource and coolness which he never suspected before.  Mrs. Taylor I always thought to be rather weak and untrustworthy, but I found that when weight was placed upon her, she was steady as a rock, a systematic and a perfect manager.  There was no doubt in a very short time as to the nature of the disease.  It was typhoid fever, the cause probably being the impure water drunk as we were coming home.  I have no mind to describe what Ellen suffered.  Suffice it to say, that her treatment was soon reduced to watching her every minute night and day, and administering small quantities of milk.  Her prostration and emaciation were excessive, and without the most constant attention she might at any moment have slipped out of our hands.  I was like a man shipwrecked and alone in a polar country, whose existence depends upon one spark of fire, which he tries to cherish, left glimmering in a handful of ashes.  Oh those days, prolonged to weeks, during which that dreadful struggle lasted--days swallowed up with one sole, intense, hungry desire that her life might be spared!—­days filled with a forecast of the blackness and despair before me if she should depart.  I tried to obtain release from the office.  The answer was that nobody could of course prevent my being away, but that it was not usual for a clerk to be absent merely because his wife was not well.  The brute added with a sneer that a wife was “a luxury” which he should have thought I could hardly afford.  We divided between us, however, at home the twenty-four