his idol should be broken, and bends his head, and subdues his
soul to the sentence he cannot avert, and scarce can bear. . . .

"No piteous, unconscious moaning sound--which so wastes our
strength that, even if we have sworn to be firm, a rush of
unconquerable tears sweeps away the oath--preceded her waking. No
space of deaf apathy followed. The first words spoken were not
those of one becoming estranged from this world, and already
permitted to stray at times into realms foreign to the living."

She went on with her work steadily. But it was dreary to write
without any one to listen to the progress of her tale,--to find
fault or to sympathise,--while pacing the length of the parlour
in the evenings, as in the days that were no more. Three sisters
had done this,--then two, the other sister dropping off from the
walk,--and now one was left desolate, to listen for echoing steps
that never came,--and to hear the wind sobbing at the windows,
with an almost articulate sound.

But she wrote on, struggling against her own feelings of illness;
"continually recurring feelings of slight cold; slight soreness
in the throat and chest, of which, do what I will," she writes,
"I cannot get rid."

In August there arose a new cause for anxiety, happily but
temporary.

"Aug. 23rd, 1849.

"Papa has not been well at all lately. He has had another attack