ead from the pillow, and regarding me with unusual
earnestness.

"Is it a fine night?" she asked.

I replied in the affirmative.

"I thought so," she said; "for I feel so strong, so well. Raise me. I
feel young to-night," she continued: "young, light-hearted, and happy.
What if my complaint be about to take a turn, and I am yet destined to
enjoy health? It would be a miracle!"

"And these are not the days of miracles," I thought to myself, and
wondered to hear her talk so. She went on directing her conversation to
the past, and seeming to recall its incidents, scenes, and personages,
with singular vividness.

"I love Memory to-night," she said: "I prize her as my best friend. She
is just now giving me a deep delight: she is bringing back to my heart,
in warm and beautiful life, realities--not mere empty ideas, but what
were once realities, and that I long have thought decayed, dissolved,
mixed in with grave-mould. I possess just now the hours, the thoughts,
the hopes of my youth. I renew the love of my life--its only
love--almost its only affection; for I am not a particularly good
woman: I am not amiable. Yet I have had my feelings, strong and
concentrated; and these feelings had their object; which, in its single
self, was dear to me, as to the majority of men and women, are all the
unnumbered points on which they dissipate their regard. While I loved,
and while I was loved, what an existence I enjoyed! What a glorious
year I can recall--how bright it comes back to me! What a living
spring--what a warm, glad summer--what soft moonlight, silvering the
autumn evenings--what strength of hope under the ice-bound waters and
frost-hoar fields of that year's winter! Through that year my heart
lived with Frank's heart. O my noble Frank--my faithful Frank--my
_good_ Frank! so much better than myself--his standard in all things so
much higher! This I can now see and say: if few women have suffered as
I did in his loss, few have enjoyed what I did in his love. It was a
far better kind of love than common; I had no doubts about it or him:
it was such a love as honoured, protected, and elevated, no less than
it gladdened her to whom it was given. Let me now ask, just at this
moment, when my mind is so strangely clear,--let me reflect why it was
taken from me? For what crime was I condemned, after twelve months of
bliss, to undergo thirty years of sorrow?

"I do not know," she continued after a pause: "I cannot--_cannot_ see