All the weariness, all the perplexity, all the sorrow, had gone from life, had slipped away from memory.

This state had come on so gradually that even Mercy hardly realized the extent of it.

The silent smile or the gentle, simple ejaculations with which her mother habitually replied meant more to her than they did to others.

She did not comprehend how little they really proved a full consciousness on her mother's part; and she was unutterably shocked, when, on going to her bedside one morning, she found her unable to move, and evidently without clear recognition of any one's face.

The end had begun; the paralysis which had so slowly been putting the mind to rest had prostrated the body also.