She promised acquiescence, and tried to obey. She put up the two or
three trinkets: and, as for the letters, she drew them out of the
place where she kept them; and read them over--as if she did not
know them by heart already: but she could not part with them. That
effort was too much for her; she placed them back in her bosom
again--as you have seen a woman nurse a child that is dead. Young
Amelia felt that she would die or lose her senses outright, if torn
away from this last consolation. How she used to blush and lighten
up when those letters came! How she used to trip away with a
beating heart, so that she might read unseen! If they were cold,
yet how perversely this fond little soul interpreted them into
warmth. If they were short or selfish, what excuses she found for
the writer!
It was over these few worthless papers that she brooded and brooded.
She lived in her past life--every letter seemed to recall some
circumstance of it. How well she remembered them all! His looks
and tones, his dress, what he said and how--these relics and
remembrances of dead affection were all that were left her in the
world. And the business of her life, was--to watch the corpse of
Love.
To death she looked with inexpressible longing. Then, she thought,
I shall always be able to follow him. I am not praising her conduct
or setting her up as a model for Miss Bullock to imitate.
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