Percival's Picture Gallery by Charlotte Maria Tucker

"NO, Sir, no; the doctor gives no hope that the poor young gentleman will ever walk again; and as for life, the doctor says that it may be a matter of months, or perhaps of years. But Mr. Percival is going down to the grave sure and certain; and he knows that himself."

Such was the sad reply given by his landlady, to my enquiries regarding my old schoolfellow, when I called at his lodging in London. I had been absent on the Continent for six weeks in the long vacation. A painful malady in his knee had prevented Percival's being, as we had both hoped, my travelling companion; and it was no small disappointment to us both when he had to be left behind.