Dearest Mary, if you live long, you will
live to think of the sad hours you have given me, as the fairest, of
perhaps, of many a happy day that I trust Heaven has yet in store for
you. Yes! God has made some whose powers are chiefly ordained to comfort
the afflicted, and in fulfilling His will you must surly be blest."
Mary listened to the half-breathed wishes of her dear old friend with
painful feelings of regret and self-reproach.
"Charles Lennox loved me," thought she, "truly, tenderly loved me; and
had I but repaid his noble frankness--had I suffered him to read my
heart when he laid his open before me, I might now have gladdened the
last days of the mother he adores. I might have proudly avowed that
affection I must now forever hide."
But at the end of some weeks Mrs. Lennox was no longer susceptible of
emotions either of joy or sorrow. She gradually sank into a state of
almost total insensibility, from which not even the arrival of her son
had power to rouse her. His anguish was extreme at finding his mother in
a condition so perfectly hopeless; and every other idea seemed, for the
present, absorbed in his anxiety for her. As Mary witnessed his watchful
cares and tender solicitude, she could almost have envied the
unconscious object of such devoted attachment.
A few days after his arrival his leave of absence was abruptly recalled,
and he was summoned to repair to headquarters with all possible
expedition.
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