Was it a sign of a hard heart within her, that she could be happy at such a time?
Ought the memory of her poor brother to have such an effect upon her as to make any joy of spirits impossible to her?
Should she at the present moment be so crushed by her aunt's demise, as to be incapable of congratulating herself upon her own success?
Should she have told him, when he asked her that question upon the bridge, that there could be no marrying or giving in marriage between them, no talking on such a subject in days so full of sorrow as these?
I do not know that she quite succeeded in recognising it as a truth that sorrow should be allowed to bar out no joy that it does not bar out of absolute necessity,--by its own weight, without reference to conventional ideas; that sorrow should never, under any circumstances, be nursed into activity, as though it were a thing in itself divine or praiseworthy.

I do not know that she followed out her arguments till she had taught herself that it is the Love that is divine,--the Love which, when outraged by death or other severance, produces that sorrow which man would control if he were strong enough, but which he cannot control by reason of the weakness of his humanity.

I doubt whether so much as this made itself plain to her, as she sat there before her toilet table, with her sombre dress hanging from her hands on to the ground.

But something of the strength of such reasoning was hers.

Knowing herself to be full of joy, she would not struggle to make herself believe that it behoved her to be unhappy.