allotted to her. There alone, reader, in that meek dependence of mind, and submission to the Divine will, lies the solution of many a miracle of patience and of endurance. It is true she possessed a constitution by nature pure, and elastic from education, that, nurtured by the taintless breath of a country air, not undermined by the midnight fête, had enabled her but as a means, to sustain, and to achieve prodigies of suffering, privation, and toil.
It was only at intervals, during the tedious silence of night, interrupted by the sighs and plaints only of the weary sufferers, that, reclining on a mattress, she snatched a hasty slumber, then starting awake, and kneeling at her husband's couch, administered to his necessities, or to those more urgent ones of her almost expiring son. "A miracle alone can save him:" such was the expression that, faint and mournful, often died upon her faltering lips.
But to pass over further detail. De Brooke, as if suddenly awaking from a long and fearful dream, fixed upon his wife his wildly looking eyes, as if to be assured it was really herself; and in the next moment, sending his gaze around the chamber, said, "God be praised! it is over. I have been haunted by a frightful vision." Though with a memory greatly impaired, yet intellect returning,
