from the failure
of the physical powers. The brother and sister had been so long alone
in the world together, and with all her faults she had been so winning,
that it was a grievous loss to him, coming too in the full bloom of her
beauty and prosperity, when he was conscious of having dealt severely
with her foibles. All was at an end--that double thread of brilliant
good-nature and worldly selfishness, with the one strand of sound
principle sometimes coming into sight. The life was gone from the
earth in its incompleteness, without an unravelling of its complicated
texture, and the wandering utterances that revealed how entirely the
brother stood first with her, added poignancy to his regret for
having been harsh with her. It could hardly be otherwise than that his
censures, however just, should now recoil upon him, and in vain did
Rachel try to point out that every word of his sister's had proved that
her better sense had all along acquiesced--he only felt what it might
have been if he had been more indulgent and less ironical, and gave
himself infinitely harder measure than he ever could have shown to her.
It was long before the suffering, either mental or bodily, by any means
abated, and Rachel felt extremely lonely, deserted, and doubtful whether
she were in any way ministering to his relief, but at last a gleam of
satisfaction came upon her. He evidently did like her attendance on him,
and he began to say something about Bessie's real love and esteem for
her--softer grief was setting in, and the ailment was lessening.

The summer morning was advancing, and the knell rung out its two deep
notes from the church tower. Rachel had been dreading the effect on him,
but he lay still, as if he had been waiting for it, and was evidently
counting the twenty-three strokes that told the age of the deceased.
Then he said he was mending, and that he should fall asleep if Rachel
would leave him, see after the poor child, and if his uncle should not
come home within the next quarter of an hour take measures to silence
the bell for the morning service; after which, he laid his injunctions
on her to rest, or what should he say to her mother? And the approach to
a smile with which these last words were spoken, enabled Rachel to obey
in some comfort.

After satisfying herself that the child was doing well, Rachel was
obliged to go into her former room, and there to stand face to face with
the white, still countenance so lately beami