and amiability of
disposition, made her the idol of the young men, recognised leader of the
girls, and the animating and central figure in the social life of the
place.

She was about twenty years old, at the height of her beauty and in the
full tide of youthful enjoyment, when she fell ill of a dreadful disease,
and for a long time lay between life and death. Or, to state the case
more accurately, the girl did die--it was a sad and faded woman who rose
from that bed of sickness.

The ravages of disease had not left a vestige of her beauty--it was
hopelessly gone. The luxuriant, shining hair had fallen out and been
replaced by a scanty growth of washed-out hue; the lips, but yesterday so
full, and red, and tempting, were thin, and drawn, and colourless, and
the rose-leaf complexion had given place to an aspect so cruelly pitted,
seamed, and scarred that even friends did not recognize her.

The fading of youth is always a melancholy experience with women; but in
most cases the process is so gradual as to temper the poignancy of
regret, and perhaps often to prevent its being experienced at all except
as a vague sentiment.

But in Miss Ludington's case the transition had been piteously sharp and
abrupt.

With others, ere youth is fully past its charms are well-nigh forgotten
in the engrossments of later years; but with her there had been nothing
to temper the bitterness of her loss.

During the long period of invalidism which followed her sickness her only
solace was a miniature of herself, at the age of seventeen, painted on
ivory, the daguerrotype process not having come into use at this time,
which was toward the close of the third decade of the present century.

Over this picture she brooded hours together when no one was near,
studying the bonny, gladsome face through blinding tears, and sometimes
murmuring incoherent words of tenderness.

Her young friends occasionally came to sit with her, by way of enlivening
the weary hours of an invalid's day. At such times she would listen with
patient indifference while they sought to interest her with current local
gossip, and as soon as possible would turn the conversation back to the
old happy days before her sickness. On this topic she was never weary of
talking, but it was impossible to induce her to take any interest in the
present.

She had caused a locket to be made, to contain the ivory miniature of
herself as a girl, and always wore it on her bosom.

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