nt. The sun had set when she returned in
the company of this servant through meadows reeking with exhalations after
a fervent day. From that time she sickened. Happily a child in such
circumstances feels no anxieties. Looking upon medical men as people whose
natural commission it is to heal diseases, since it is their natural
function to profess it, knowing them only as _ex-officio_ privileged to
make war upon pain and sickness--I never had a misgiving about the result.
I grieved indeed that my sister should lie in bed: I grieved still more
sometimes to hear her moan. But all this appeared to me no more than a
night of trouble on which the dawn would soon arise. Oh! moment of
darkness and delirium, when a nurse awakened me from that delusion, and
launched God's thunderbolt at my heart in the assurance that my sister
_must_ die. Rightly it is said of utter, utter misery, that it "cannot be
_remembered_."[6] Itself, as a remembrable thing, is swallowed up in its
own chaos. Mere anarchy and confusion of mind fell upon me. Deaf and blind
I was, as I reeled under the revelation. I wish not to recal the
circumstances of that time, when _my_ agony was at its height, and hers in
another sense was approaching. Enough to say--that all was soon over; and
the morning of that day had at last arrived which looked down upon her
innocent face, sleeping the sleep from which there is no awaking, and upon
me sorrowing the sorrow for which there is no consolation.

On the day after my sister's death, whilst the sweet temple of her brain
was yet unviolated by human scrutiny, I formed my own scheme for seeing
her once more. Not for the world would I have made this known, nor have
suffered a witness to accompany me. I had never heard of feelings that
take the name of "sentimental," nor dreamed of such a possibility. But
grief even in a child hates the light, and shrinks from human eyes. The
house was large; there were two staircases; and by one of these I knew
that about noon, when all would be quiet, I could steal up into her
chamber. I imagine that it was exactly high noon when I reached the
chamber door; it was locked; but the key was not taken away. Entering, I
closed the door so softly, that, although it opened upon a hall which
ascended through all the stories, no echo ran along the silent walls. Then
turning round, I sought my sister's face. But the bed had been moved; and
the back was now turned. Nothing met my eyes but one large window