conflict. She died on _Tuesday_, the very day I wrote to you.
I thought it very possible she might be with us still for weeks, and
a few hours afterwards she was in eternity. Yes, there is no Emily
in time or on earth now. Yesterday we put her poor, wasted, mortal
frame quietly under the church pavement. We are very calm at
present. Why should we be otherwise? The anguish of seeing her
suffer is over; the spectacle of the pains of death is gone by; the
funeral day is past. We feel she is at peace. No need now to
tremble for the hard frost and the keen wind. Emily does not feel
them. She died in a time of promise. We saw her taken from life in
its prime. But it is God's will, and the place where she is gone is
better than she has left.'

TO W. S. WILLIAMS

'_December_ 25_th_, 1848.

'MY DEAR SIR,--I will write to you more at length when my heart can
find a little rest--now I can only thank you very briefly for your
letter, which seemed to me eloquent in its sincerity.

'Emily is nowhere here now, her wasted mortal remains are taken out
of the house. We have laid her cherished head under the church aisle
beside my mother's, my two sisters'--dead long ago--and my poor,
hapless brother's. But a small remnant of the race is left--so my
poor father thinks.

'Well, the loss is ours, not hers, and some sad comfort I take, as I
hear the wind blow and feel the cutting keenness of the frost, in
knowing that the elements bring her no more suffering; their severity
cannot reach her grave; her fever is quieted, her restlessness
soothed, her deep, hollow cough is hushed for ever; we do not hear it
in the night nor listen for it in the morning; we have not the
conflict of the strangely strong spirit and the fragile frame before
us--relentless conflict--once seen, never to be forgotten. A dreary
calm reigns round us, in the midst of which we seek resignation.

'My father and my sister Anne are far from well. As for me, God has
hitherto most graciously sustained me; so far I have felt adequate to
bear my own burden and even to offer a little help to others. I am
not ill; I can get through daily duties, and do something towards
keeping hope and energy alive in our mourning household. My father
says to me