the
insect sounds of midsummer; yet she could only distinguish the ripple
beneath her feet, and the rote on the distant beach, and the busy wash
of waters against every shore and islet of the bay. The mist was thick
around her, but she knew that above it hung the sleepless stars, and the
fancy came over her that perhaps the whole vast interval, from ocean
up to sky, might be densely filled with the disembodied souls of her
departed human kindred, waiting to see how she would endure that path
of grief in which their steps had gone before. "It may be from this
influence," she vaguely mused within herself, "that the ocean derives
its endless song of sorrow. Perhaps we shall know the meaning when we
understand that of the stars, and of our own sad lives."

She rose again and went to the bedside. It all seemed like a dream, and
she was able to look at Emilia's existence and at her own and at all
else, as if it were a great way off; as we watch the stars and know that
no speculations of ours can reach those who there live or die untouched.
Here beside her lay one who was dead, yet living, in her temporary
trance, and to what would she wake, when it should end? This young
creature had been sent into the world so fresh, so beautiful, so richly
gifted; everything about her physical organization was so delicate and
lovely; she had seemed like heliotrope, like a tube-rose in her
purity and her passion (who was it said, "No heart is pure that is not
passionate"?); and here was the end! Nothing external could have placed
her where she was, no violence, no outrage, no evil of another's doing,
could have reached her real life without her own consent; and now what
kind of existence, what career, what possibility of happiness remained?
Why could not God in his mercy take her, and give her to his holiest
angels for schooling, ere it was yet too late?

Hope went and sat by the window once more. Her thoughts still clung
heavily around one thought, as the white fog clung round the house.
Where should she see any light? What opening for extrication, unless,
indeed, Emilia should die? There could be no harm in that thought,
for she knew it was not to be, and that the swoon would not last much
longer. Who could devise anything? No one. There was nothing. Almost
always in perplexities there is some thread by resolutely holding to
which one escapes at last. Here there was none. There could probably
be no concealment, certainly no explanation. I