n asked by St. Aubert for his opinion of the disorder, replied,
that the event of it depended upon circumstances which he could not
ascertain. Madame St. Aubert seemed to have formed a more decided one;
but her eyes only gave hints of this. She frequently fixed them upon her
anxious friends with an expression of pity, and of tenderness, as if she
anticipated the sorrow that awaited them, and that seemed to say, it was
for their sakes only, for their sufferings, that she regretted life. On
the seventh day, the disorder was at its crisis. The physician assumed
a graver manner, which she observed, and took occasion, when her family
had once quitted the chamber, to tell him, that she perceived her death
was approaching. 'Do not attempt to deceive me,' said she, 'I feel that
I cannot long survive. I am prepared for the event, I have long, I hope,
been preparing for it. Since I have not long to live, do not suffer a
mistaken compassion to induce you to flatter my family with false hopes.
If you do, their affliction will only be the heavier when it arrives: I
will endeavour to teach them resignation by my example.'

The physician was affected; he promised to obey her, and told St.
Aubert, somewhat abruptly, that there was nothing to expect. The latter
was not philosopher enough to restrain his feelings when he received
this information; but a consideration of the increased affliction which
the observance of his grief would occasion his wife, enabled him,
after some time, to command himself in her presence. Emily was at first
overwhelmed with the intelligence; then, deluded by the strength of her
wishes, a hope sprung up in her mind that her mother would yet recover,
and to this she pertinaciously adhered almost to the last hour.

The progress of this disorder was marked, on the side of Madame St.
Aubert, by patient suffering, and subjected wishes. The composure, with
which she awaited her death, could be derived only from the retrospect
of a life governed, as far as human frailty permits, by a consciousness
of being always in the presence of the Deity, and by the hope of a
higher world. But her piety could not entirely subdue the grief of
parting from those whom she so dearly loved. During these her last
hours, she conversed much with St. Aubert and Emily, on the prospect of
futurity, and on other religious topics. The resignation she expressed,
with the firm hope of meeting in a future world the friends she left in
this, and