y Gabriella," she said, tenderly caressing me.
"It is astonishing how much the human heart can bear without breaking.
Sorrow may dry up, drop by drop, the fountain of life, but it is
generally the work of years. The heart lives, though every source of joy
be dead,--lives without one well-spring of happiness to quench its
burning thirst,--lives in the midst of desolation, darkness, and
despair. Oh, my Gabriella," she continued, with a burst of feeling that
swept over her with irresistible power, and bowed her as before a stormy
gust, "would to God that we might die together,--that the same almighty
mandate would free us both from this prison-house of sorrow and of sin.
I have prayed for resignation,--I have prayed for faith; but, O my God!
I am rebellious, I am weak, I have suffered and struggled so long."

She spoke in a tone of physical as well as menial agony. I was looking
up in her face, and it seemed as if a dark shadow rolled over it. I
sprang to my feet and screamed. Peggy, who was already on the threshold,
caught her as she fell forward, and laid her on the bed as if she were a
little child. She was in a fainting fit. I had seen her before in these
deathlike swoons, but never had I watched with such shuddering dread to
see the dawn of awakening life break upon her face. I stood at her
pillow scarcely less pale and cold than herself.

"This is all your doings, Miss Gabriella," muttered Peggy, while busily
engaged in the task of restoration. "If you don't want to kill your
mother, you must keep out of your tantrums. What's the use of going on
so, I wonder,--and what's the use of my watching her as carefully as if
she was made of glass, when you come like a young hurricane and break
her into atoms. There,--go away and keep quiet. Let her be till she gets
over this turn. I know exactly what's best for her."

She spoke with authority, and I obeyed as if the voice of a superior
were addressing me. I obeyed,--but not till I had seen the hue of
returning life steal over the marble pallor of her cheek. I wandered
into the garden, but the narrow paths, the precise formed beds, the
homely aspect of vegetable nature, filled me with a strange loathing. I
felt suffocated, oppressed,--I jumped over the railing and plunged into
the woods,--the wild, ample woods,--my home,--my wealth,--my God-granted
inheritance. I sat down under the oaks, and fixed my eyes upwards on the
mighty dome that seemed resting on the strong forest tre