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alone as she was, accomplished some of these, and the work on which I found
her employed, was her mother's shroud. My heart sickened at such detail of
woe, which a female can endure, but which is more painful to the masculine
spirit than deadliest struggle, or throes of unutterable but transient
agony.
This must not be, I told her; and then, as further inducement, I
communicated to her my recent loss, and gave her the idea that she must
come with me to take charge of the orphan children, whom the death of Idris
had deprived of a mother's care. Lucy never resisted the call of a duty, so
she yielded, and closing the casements and doors with care, she accompanied
me back to Windsor. As we went she communicated to me the occasion of her
mother's death. Either by some mischance she had got sight of Lucy's letter
to Idris, or she had overheard her conversation with the countryman who
bore it; however it might be, she obtained a knowledge of the appalling
situation of herself and her daughter, her aged frame could not sustain the
anxiety and horror this discovery instilled--she concealed her knowledge
from Lucy, but brooded over it through sleepless nights, till fever and
delirium, swift forerunners of death, disclosed the secret. Her life, which
had long been hovering on its extinction, now yielded at once to the united
effects of misery and sickness, and that same morning she had died.
After the tumultuous emotions of the day, I was glad to find on my arrival
at the inn that my companions had retired to rest. I gave Lucy in charge to
the Countess's attendant, and then sought repose from my various struggles
and impatient regrets. For a few moments the events of the day floated in
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