Those who loved her watched her in her trouble with eager
hope that some good might yet come of it; but the hope diminished
always as the days wore on. At first her mind had raged and stormed;
one could see it, though she said so little. Her renunciation was
perfect, but nevertheless she could not reconcile herself to it. She
would not go back, but she could not go on, and so she remained midway
between the past, which was hateful to her, and the future, which was a
blank, raging at both. But gradually the storm subsided; and then came
a period of calm, but whether it was the calm of apathy or the calm of
resignation it was hard to say--and meantime she lost her health again,
and became so fragile that my sister only expressed what I felt when
she was speaking of her one day, and said, sadly:
"Her cheek is so waxenly thin,
As if deathward 'twere whitening in,
And the cloud of her flesh, still more white,
Were clearing till soul is in sight.
* * * * *
Her large eyes too liquidly glister!
Her mouth is too red.
Have they kissed her---
The angels that bend down to pull
Our buds of the Beautiful,
And whispered their own little Sister?"
We were anxious to take her abroad, but she would not accompany us.
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