effort.

And what sort of crisis might not this be in three lives whose contact
with hers laid an obligation on her as if they had been suppliants
bearing the sacred branch? The objects of her rescue were not to be
sought out by her fancy: they were chosen for her. She yearned towards
the perfect Right, that it might make a throne within her, and rule her
errant will. "What should I do--how should I act now, this very day,
if I could clutch my own pain, and compel it to silence, and think of
those three?"

It had taken long for her to come to that question, and there was light
piercing into the room. She opened her curtains, and looked out
towards the bit of road that lay in view, with fields beyond outside
the entrance-gates. On the road there was a man with a bundle on his
back and a woman carrying her baby; in the field she could see figures
moving--perhaps the shepherd with his dog. Far off in the bending sky
was the pearly light; and she felt the largeness of the world and the
manifold wakings of men to labor and endurance. She was a part of that
involuntary, palpitating life, and could neither look out on it from
her luxurious shelter as a mere spectator, nor hide her eyes in selfish
complaining.

What she would resolve to do that day did not yet seem quite clear, but
something that she could achieve stirred her as with an approaching
murmur which would soon gather distinctness. She took off the clothes
which seemed to have some of the weariness of a hard watching in them,
and began to make her toilet. Presently she rang for Tantripp, who
came in her dressing-gown.

"Why, madam, you've never been in bed this blessed night," burst out
Tantripp, looking first at the bed and then at Dorothea's face, which
in spite of bathing had the pale cheeks and pink eyelids of a mater
dolorosa. "You'll kill yourself, you _will_. Anybody might think now
you had a right to give yourself a little comfort."

"Don't be alarmed, Tantripp," said Dorothea, smiling. "I have slept; I
am not ill. I shall be glad of a cup of coffee as soon as possible.
And I want you to bring me my new dress; and most likely I shall want
my new bonnet to-day."

"They've lain there a month and more ready for you, madam, and most
thankful I shall be to see you with a couple o' pounds' worth less of
crape," said Tantripp, stooping to light the fire. "There's a reason
in mourning, as I've always said; and three folds at the bottom of your
sk