All night long she slept in her verdurous St. Bernard's hospice without
awaking, and whether she would _ever_ awake seemed to depend upon
an accident. The slumber that towered above her brain was like that
fluctuating silvery column which stands in scientific tubes sinking,
rising, deepening, lightening, contracting, expanding; or like the mist
that sits, through sultry afternoons, upon the river of the American
St. Peter, sometimes rarefying for minutes into sunny gauze, sometimes
condensing for hours into palls of funeral darkness. You fancy that,
after twelve hours of _any_ sleep, she must have been refreshed;
better at least than she was last night. Ah! but sleep is not always
sent upon missions of refreshment. Sleep is sometimes the secret
chamber in which death arranges his machinery. Sleep is sometimes that
deep mysterious atmosphere, in which the human spirit is slowly
unsettling its wings for flight from earthly tenements. It is now eight
o'clock in the morning; and, to all appearance, if Kate should receive
no aid before noon, when next the sun is departing to his rest, Kate
will be departing to hers; when next the sun is holding out his golden
Christian signal to man, that the hour is come for letting his anger go
down, Kate will be sleeping away for ever into the arms of brotherly
forgiveness.
Pages:
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207