The first excess of any sad feeling is half voluntary.

Emilia could not help smiling, when she lifted her head out of a musing fit, to find that she had composed part of a minuet for the languid dancing motes in the shaft of golden light at her feet.
"Can I remember it ?" she thought, and forgot the incident with the effort.
Down at her right hand, bordering a water, stood a sallow, a dead tree, channelled inside with the brown trail of a goat-moth.

Looking in this direction, she saw Cornelia advancing to the tree.

When the lady had reached it, she drew a little book from her bosom, kissed it, and dropped it in the hollow.

This done, she passed among the firs.