by the pressure of
sorrow, rose again with the buoyancy which affliction can
repress, but hardly destroy in a nature like hers, to which
happiness seemed almost a condition of existence. A sorrow
which would have broken this spring within her must have
killed her--but this did not; and the full flow of her
affections seemed to return in what had once appeared to be
their natural channel--she clung to me with a fondness that
seemed every hour to increase. Superior as she was, there was
about her a kind of dependence upon others--upon their love
and their sympathy--which was inexpressibly endearing. In
those early times of sorrow I received her caresses, and
listened to the words of love which she addressed to me, with
something of the spirit with which I can imagine that the Holy
Francoise de Chantal may have pressed to her bosom the burning
cross, that stamped upon her breast the sign of salvation,* [*
Madame de Chantal, the Founder of the Order of the Visitation,
impressed upon her breast, with a burning iron, the sign of
the cross.]--at once the object of intense adoration and the
instrument of acute torture.

My cousin and Henry Lovell staid on at Elmsley, and nothing,
in the manner of either, gave me the least clue to discover
which was the possessor of my dreadful secret. Both were kind
to me, and both seemed to regard me with more interest than
usual. In Edward's countenance I sometimes read a look of
severity, which made the blood forsake my heart; but then at
other times his voice was so gentle in speaking to me, his
countenance had so much sweetness in it, as he turned his eyes
full upon me, that I felt re-assured, though, at the same
time, intensely miserable.

With Henry I felt more at my ease--why I cannot tell, but he
was the only person with whom, since the fatal day of Julia's
death, I could speak in the same manner as I did before. There
was something soothing to my wayward feelings in the
thoughtless gaiety which he soon resumed. In the course of a
few weeks I persuaded myself nearly, if not entirely, that
fancy, allied with terror, had conjured up, in that fatal
hour, the cry which had sounded in my ears; at least I
pacified my fears by repeating this supposition to myself. It
was like a sedative, that numbs without removing the pain we
feel. It made me better able to endure what I had to go
through. Church was a terrible ordeal to me. I went of an
afternoon only, for several following Sundays,