Page:Scenes in my Native Land.pdf/201

Rh self from childhood the partaker of her pleasures, and the companion of her studies. She had been to him almost an object of idolatry, and when the weight of advancing years called on her to minister to his daily comfort, her affection became inexpressibly tender and pervading. It was a touching mixture of deep respect, and fond devotedness, a delight in being near him; a desire to protect him from all anxiety, an indwelling of his image in her perpetual thought. To the friend who shared her entire confidence, she sometimes expressed the feeling that she should never be able to survive him.

But sudden and alarming sickness made him its victim. Night and day she watched him, without consciousness of fatigue; she was unwilling that any hand save her own should prepare or administer either medicine, or nourishment. When the work of the Destroyer, was complete, she wished to be constantly near the beloved clay, but it was observed that she shed no tear. "How beautiful are those features," she often murmured, but no drop from her straining eyes fell upon them. The knell at which she was wont to weep, when it tolled even for strangers, the great concourse mournfully assembling to do honor to the deceased, the pathetic prayers from lips that she revered, the sullen grave closing upon the cherished form, drew no tear. Friends watched her with intense anxiety, strangers were astonished at her composure.

She returned from the funeral solemnities, and sat