"Help me up," she said, "for I am without strength." And all weak, trembling, and sobbing, she allowed herself to be undressed and put to bed.
Miss Campbell lay down in the same room. She listened till the quivering, catching sobs had given place to deep-drawn sighs, and these again to disturbed breathings, and then both slept the sleep of utter exhaustion, and Miss Campbell, fortunately, knew not when the mourner awoke from it.
Oh, the dreary first-fruits of excessive sorrow! The first days of a stricken heart, passed through, writhed through, ground through, we scarcely know or remember how, before the knowledge of the bereavement has become habitual--while it is still struggle and not endurance--the same ceaseless recoil from the same ever-recurring shock. It was a blessing that she was ill, very ill; the body shared something of the weight at first.
Let no one, untried by such extremity, here lift the word or look of deprecation. Let there not be a thought of what she ought to have done, or what they would have done. God's love is great, and a Christian's faith is strong, but when have the first encounters between old joys and new sorrows been otherwise than fierce? From time to time a few intervals of heavenly composure, wonderful and gracious to the sufferer, may be permitted, and even the dim light of future peace discerned in the distance; but, in a moment, the gauntlet of defiance is thrown again--no matter what--an old look, an old word, which comes rushing unbidden over the soul, and dreadful feelings rise again only to spend themselves by their own violence. It always seems to us as if sorrow had a nature of its own, independent of that whereon it has fallen, and sometimes strangely at variance with it--scorching the gentle, melting the passionate, dignifying the weak, and prostrating the strong--and showing the real nature, habits, or principles of the mind, only in those defenses it raises up during the intervals of relief. With Mrs. H---- these defenses were reared on the only sure base, and though the storm would sweep down her bulwarks, and cover all over with the furious tide of grief, yet the foundation was left to cling to, and every renewal added somewhat to its strength.