Not always do those who dare such divine conflict prevail. Night after night the sweat of agony may burst dark on the forehead; the may cry for mercy with that soundless voice the soul utters when its appeal is to the Invisible. "Spare my beloved," it may . "Heal my life's life. not from me what long affection entwines with my whole nature. God of heaven, bend, hear, be !" And after this cry and the sun may rise and see him worsted. That opening morn, which used to him with the whisper of , the carol of skylarks, may breathe, as its first accents, from the dear lips which colour and heat have quitted, "Oh! I have had a suffering night. This morning I am worse. I have tried to rise. I cannot. Dreams I am unused to have troubled me."  
Then the watcher approaches the patient's pillow, and sees a new and strange moulding of the familiar features, feels at once that the insufferable moment draws nigh, knows that it is God's will his shall be broken, and bends his head, and his soul to the sentence he cannot and scarce can bear.
 
Happy Mrs. Pryor! She was still praying, unconscious that the summer sun hung above the hills, when her child softly woke in her arms. No piteous, unconscious moaning—sound which so wastes our strength that, even if we have sworn to be firm, a rush of unconquerable tears sweeps away the oath—preceded her waking. No space of deaf followed. The first words spoken were not those of one becoming from this world, and already permitted to stray at times into realms foreign to the living. Caroline evidently remembered with clearness what had happened.
 
"Mamma, I have slept so well. I only dreamed and woke twice."
 
385Mrs. Pryor rose with a start, that her daughter might not see the tears called into her eyes by that affectionate word "mamma," and the welcome assurance that followed it.
 
For many days the mother dared rejoice only with trembling. That first seemed like the of a dying lamp. If the flame streamed up bright one moment, the next it sank dim in the . followed close on excitement.
 
There was always a endeavour to appear better, but too often ability refused to second will; too often the attempt to bear up failed. The effort to eat, to talk, to look cheerful, was unsuccessful. Many an hour passed during which Mrs. Pryor feared that the chords of life could never more be strengthened, though the time of their breaking might be .
 
During this space the mother and daughter seemed left almost alone in the neighbourhood. It was the close of August; the weather was fine—that is to say, it was very dry and very dusty, for an wind had been blowing from the east this month past; very cloudless, too, though a pale , in the atmosphere, seemed to rob of all depth of tone the blue of heaven, of all freshness the verdure of earth, and of all glow the light of day. Almost every family in Briarfield was absent on an excursion. Miss Keeldar and her friends were at the seaside; so were Mrs. Yorke's household. Mr. Hall and Louis Moore, between whom a spontaneous seemed to have arisen—the result, probably, of harmony of views and temperament—were gone "up north" on a pedestrian excursion to the Lakes. Even Hortense, who would fain have stayed at home and aided Mrs. Pryor in nursing Caroline, had been so earnestly by Miss Mann to accompany her once more to Wormwood Wells, in the hope of sufferings greatly by the insalubrious weather, that she felt obliged to comply; indeed, it was not in her nature to refuse a request that at once appealed to her goodness of heart, and, by a of dependency, flattered her amour propre. As for Robert, from Birmingham he had gone on to London, where he still sojourned.
 
So long as the breath of Asiatic deserts Caroline's lips and fevered her , her physical could not keep pace with her returning mental ; but there came a day when the wind ceased to at the386 eastern gable of the rectory, and at the oriel window of the church. A little cloud like a man's hand arose in the west; from the same quarter drove it on and spread it wide; wet and tempest prevailed a while. When that was over the sun broke out , heaven its , and earth its green; the livid cholera-tint had vanished from the face of nature; the hills rose clear round the horizon, from that pale malaria-haze.
 
Caroline's youth could now be of some avail to her, and so could her mother's . Both, crowned by God's , sent in the pure west wind blowing soft as fresh through the ever-open lattice, her long-languishing energies. At last Mrs. Pryor saw that it was permitted to hope: a genuine, material convalescence had commenced. It was not merely Caroline's smile which was brighter, or her spirits which were cheered, but a certain look had passed from her face and eye—a look and indescribable, but which will easily be recalled by those who have watched the couch of dangerous disease. Long before the outlines of her aspect began to fill, or its departed colour to return, a more subtle change took place; all grew softer and warmer. Instead of a marble mask and glassy eye, Mrs. Pryor saw laid on the pillow a face pale and wasted enough, perhaps more haggard than the other appearance, but less awful; for it was a sick, living girl, not a white mould or piece of statuary.
 
Now, too, she was not always petitioning to drink. The words, "I am so thirsty," ceased to be her plaint. Sometimes, when she had swallowed a , she would say it had revived her. All descriptions of food were no longer equally distasteful; she could be induced, sometimes, to indicate a preference. With what trembling pleasure and anxious care did not her nurse prepare what was selected! How she watched her as she partook of it!
 
brought strength. She could sit up. Then she longed to breathe the fresh air, to revisit her flowers, to see how the fruit had . Her uncle, always liberal, had bought a garden-chair for her express use. He carried her down in his own arms, and placed her in it himself, and William Farren was there to wheel her round the walks, to show her what he had done amongst her plants, to take her directions for further work.
 
William and she found plenty to talk about. They had a dozen topics in common—interesting to them, unimportant387 to the rest of the world. They took a similar interest in animals, birds, insects, and plants; they held similar about humanity to the lower creation, and had a similar turn for minute observation on points of natural history. The nest and of some ground-bees, which had in the turf under an old cherry-tree, was one subject of interest; the haunts of certain hedge-sparrows, and the welfare of certain pearly eggs and callow fledglings, another.
 
Had Chambers's Journal existed in those days, it would certainly have formed Miss Helstone's and Farren's favourite periodical. She would have for it, and to him each number would duly have been lent; both would have put faith and found great savour in its marvellous of animal sagacity.
 
This is a digression, but it suffices to explain why Caroline would have no other hand than William's to guide her chair, and why his society and conversation sufficed to give interest to her garden-airings.
 
Mrs. Pryor, walking near, wondered how her daughter could be so much at ease with a "man of the people." She found it impossible to speak to him otherwise than stiffly. She felt as if a great lay between her caste and his, and that to cross it or meet him half-way would be to degrade herself. She gently asked Caroline, "Are you not afraid, my dear, to with that person so unreservedly? He may presume, and become troublesomely ."
 
"William presume, mamma? You don't know him. He never presumes. He is altogether too proud and sensit............