Toward the end of our second year, however, her
ailment took an unexpected turn for the worse. She became the victim of
a settled melancholy, attended with vague forebodings of impending
misfortune.
"You must keep up her spirits," said our physician, the best in the
neighboring town. "This melancholy lowers her tone too much, tends to
lessen her strength, and, if it continue too long, may be fraught with
grave consequences."
I tried various expedients to cheer her up. I read novels to her. I had
the hands on the place come up in the evening and serenade her with
plantation songs. Friends came in sometimes and talked, and frequent
letters from the North kept her in touch with her former home. But
nothing seemed to rouse her from the depression into which she had
fallen.
One pleasant afternoon in spring, I placed an armchair in a shaded
portion of the front piazza, and filling it with pillows led my wife out
of the house and seated her where she would have the pleasantest view of
a somewhat monotonous scenery. She was scarcely placed when old Julius
came through the yard, and, taking off his tattered straw hat, inquired,
somewhat anxiously:--
"How is you feelin' dis atternoon, ma'm?"
"She is not very cheerful, Julius," I said.
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