What mockery that seemed to Janet! _Her_ troubles had been sinking her lower from year to year, pressing upon her like heavy fever-laden vapours, and perverting the very plenitude of her nature into a deeper source of disease.

Her wretchedness had been a perpetually tightening instrument of torture, which had gradually absorbed all the other sensibilities of her nature into the sense of pain and the maddened craving for relief.

Oh, if some ray of hope, of pity, of consolation, would pierce through the horrible gloom, she might believe _then_ in a Divine love--in a heavenly Father who cared for His children! But now she had no faith, no trust.

There was nothing she could lean on in the wide world, for her mother was only a fellow-sufferer in her own lot.

The poor patient woman could do little more than mourn with her daughter: she had humble resignation enough to sustain her own soul, but she could no more give comfort and fortitude to Janet, than the withered ivy-covered trunk can bear up its strong, full-boughed offspring crashing down under an Alpine storm.