She now moved to and fro through the room with a cautious tranquillity
which nothing could startle; she prepared her decayed roots for food
with a patient attention which nothing could divert. Lost, through the
aggravated miseries of her position, to recent grief and present
apprehension, she could still instinctively perform the simple offices
of the woman and the daughter, as she might have performed them amid a
peaceful nation and a prosperous home. Thus do the first-born
affections outlast the exhaustion of all the stormy emotions, all the
aspiring thoughts of after years, which may occupy, but which cannot
absorb, the spirit within us; thus does their friendly and familiar
voice, when the clamour of contending passions has died away in its own
fury, speak again, serene and sustaining as in the early time, when the
mind moved secure within the limits of its native simplicity, and the
heart yet lay happy in the pure tranquillity of its first repose!
The last scanty measure of food was soon prepared; it was bitter and
unpalatable when she tasted it--life could barely be preserved, even in
the most vigorous, by provision so wretched; but she set it aside as
carefully as if it had been the most precious luxury of the most
abundant feast.
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