Longing, however, is not necessarily pain--it may, indeed, be
intensest bliss; and, if Mary longed for the freedom of the
country, it was not to be miserable that she could not have it.
Her mere thought of it was to her a greater delight than the
presence of all its joys is to many who desire them the most.
That such things, and the possibility of such sensations from
them, should be in the world, was enough to make Mary jubilant.
But, then, she was at peace with her conscience, and had her
heart full of loving duty. Besides, an active patience is a
heavenly power. Mary could not only walk along a pavement dry and
lifeless as the Sahara, enjoying the summer that brooded all
about and beyond the city, but she bore the re-freshment of
blowing winds and running waters into Letty's hot room, with the
clanging street in front, and the little yard behind, where, from
a cord stretched across between the walls, hung a few pieces of
ill-washed linen, motionless in the glare, two plump sparrows
picking up crumbs in their shadow--into this live death Mary
would carry a tone of breeze, and sailing cloud, and swaying
tree-top. In her the life was so concentrated and active that she
was capable of communicating life--the highest of human
endowments.
One evening, as Letty was telling her how the dressmaker up
stairs had been for some time unwell, and Mary was feeling
reproachful that she had not told her before, that she might have
seen what she could do for her, they became aware, it seemed
gradually, of one softest, sweetest, faintest music-tone coming
from somewhere--but not seeming sufficiently of this world to
disclose whence.
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