She and Crossthwaite
used to sit and read to me--from the Bible, from poets, from every book
which could suggest soothing, graceful, or hopeful fancies. Now out of the
stillness of the darkened chamber, one or two priceless sentences of a
Kempis, or a spirit-stirring Hebrew psalm, would fall upon my ear: and then
there was silence again; and I was left to brood over the words in vacancy,
till they became a fibre of my own soul's core. Again and again the stories
of Lazarus and the Magdalene alternated with Milton's Penseroso, or with
Wordsworth's tenderest and most solemn strains. Exquisite prints from the
history of our Lord's life and death were hung one by one, each for a
few days, opposite my bed, where they might catch my eye the moment that
I woke, the moment before I fell asleep. I heard one day the good dean
remonstrating with her on the "sentimentalism" of her mode of treatment.
"Poor drowned butterfly!" she answered, smiling, "he must be fed with
honey-dew. Have I not surely had practice enough already?"
"Yes, angel that you are!" answered the old man. "You have indeed had
practice enough!" And lifting her hand reverentially to his lips, he turned
and left the room.
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