She held a book by the open window, or gazed for a very long time out upon the landscape.

There were pine-trees near her window; but beyond she could see green meadows, and blue hills, and a glittering river, and rounded reaches of woods.

She watched the clouds, or, at least, looked at the sky.

She heard the birds in spring days, and the dry hot locusts on sultry afternoons; and she looked with the same unchanging eyes upon the opening buds and blooming flowers, as upon the worms that swung themselves on filaments and ate the leaves and ruined the trees, or the autumnal hectic which Death painted upon the leaves that escaped the worms.
Sometimes on these still, warm afternoons her lips parted, as if she were singing.

But it was a very grave, quiet performance.