Thus to live, as hardly, as courageously, and to be so sorely missed when she departed, few women were fit for this.

As for herself ...
The sky, flooded with moonlight, was of a wonderful lambency and depth; across the whole arch of heaven a band of cloud, fashioned strangely into carven shapes, defiled in solemn march.

The white ground no longer spoke of chill and desolateness, for the air was soft; and by some magic of the approaching spring the snow appeared to be only a mask covering the earth's face, in nowise terrifying--a mask one knew must soon be lifted.
Maria seated by the little window fixed her unconscious eyes upon the sky and the fields stretching away whitely to the environing woods, and of a sudden it was borne to her that the question she was asking herself had just received its answer.

To dwell in this land as her mother had dwelt, and, dying thus, to leave behind her a sorrowing husband and a record of the virtues of her race, she knew in her heart she was fit for that.

In reckoning with herself there was no trace of vanity; rather did the response seem from without.
Yes, she was able; and she was filled with wonderment as though at the shining of some unlooked-for light.
Thus she too could live; but ...