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departure of mortal malady, I ventured to whisper the news of the change to
Idris, and at length succeeded in persuading her that I spoke truth.
But neither this assurance, nor the speedy convalescence of our child could
restore her, even to the portion of peace she before enjoyed. Her fear had
been too deep, too absorbing, too entire, to be changed to security. She
felt as if during her past calm she had dreamed, but was now awake; she
was
As one
In some lone watch-tower on the deep, awakened
From soothing visions of the home he loves,
Trembling to hear the wrathful billows roar;[6]
as one who has been cradled by a storm, and awakes to find the
vessel sinking. Before, she had been visited by pangs of fear--now, she
never enjoyed an interval of hope. No smile of the heart ever irradiated
her fair countenance; sometimes she forced one, and then gushing tears
would flow, and the sea of grief close above these wrecks of past
happiness. Still while I was near her, she could not be in utter despair--
she fully confided herself to me--she did not seem to fear my death, or
revert to its possibility; to my guardianship she consigned the full
freight of her anxieties, reposing on my love, as a wind-nipped fawn by the
side of a doe, as a wounded nestling under its mother's wing, as a tiny,
shattered boat, quivering still, beneath some protecting willow-tree. While
I, not proudly as in days of joy, yet tenderly, and with glad consciousness
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