od qualities
and excellent heart, won her affections, and thus Miss Gunilla became
Mistress. After this, in the circle of her friends she was accustomed to
be called Mrs. Gunilla; which freedom we also shall sometimes take with
her here.

Shortly after her marriage, and in consequence of cold, her husband
became a sad invalid. For thirty years she lived separated from the
world, a faithful and lonely attendant of the sick man; and what she
bore and what she endured the world knew not, for she endured all in
silence. For several years her husband could not bear the light; she
learned, therefore, to work in darkness, and thus made a large
embroidered carpet. "Into this carpet," said she, as she once spoke
accidentally of herself, "have I worked many tears."

One of the many hypochondriacal fancies of her husband was, that he was
about to fall into a yawning abyss, and only could believe himself safe
so long as he held the hand of his wife. Thus for one month after
another she sate by his couch.

At length the grave opened for him; and thanking his wife for the
happiness he had enjoyed in the house of sickness on earth, he sank to
rest, in full belief of a land of restoration beyond. When he was gone,
it seemed to her as if she were as useless in the world as an old
almanack; but here also again her soul raised itself under its burden,
and she regulated her life with peace and decision. In course of years
she grew more cheerful, and the originality of her talents and
disposition which nature had given to her, and which, in her solitude,
had undisturbedly followed their own bent, brought a freshness with them
into social life, into which she entered at first rather from resolution
than from feeling at ease in it.

"The Lord ordains all things for the best;" that had always been, and
still remained, the firm anchorage of her soul. But it was not this
alone which gave to her the peace and gentleness which announced
themselves in her voice, and diffused a true grace over her aged and
not handsome countenance; they had yet another foundation: for even as
the sunken sun throws the loveliest light upon the earth which it has
left, so does the holy memory of a beloved but departed human being on
the remaining solitary friend. Mrs. Gunilla herself lived in such a
remembrance: she knew it not, but after the death of her husband the
dark pictures of his suffering vanished more and more, and his own form,
purified by patience and