Perhaps it was because I found myself so utterly alone, for this death
closed up the narrow by-ways of mutual sympathy that had ever existed
between the widowed Mrs. Hampden and myself. An elder brother of hers
had come to attend her husband's funeral, and had evinced the deepest
and most exclusive solicitude and compassion for her in her
bereavement. He took an intense interest in Fred, holding him at arm's
length for a flattering inspection of his physical perfections, and
looked upon me as some curious outside appendage to the family
pretensions.
They revelled in one another's sustaining sympathy and love, holding
confidential councils by themselves for hours at a time in my late
father's library. I was not intruded upon in my early grief by their
condolences or companionship, they left me uninterrupted to my
broodings and my tears, as if I had not the same right to the
privileges of investigating our altered affairs as they.
Oh, how slow and how weary are those moments of solitary anguish, when
the great tide of universal sympathy is ebbing from us in our grief!
How oppressive the silence of suffering when no soothing accent of
tender and comforting encouragement breaks upon our listening,
impatient ears! How feeble the heart when no helping hand is nigh! How
cheerless the prospect upon which the smile of a sustaining love has
ceased to play!
About a fortnight after the funeral, on a gloomy October day, as I sat
by the window in the privacy of my own room, looking out at falling
leaves, and fading flowers, and drifting clouds, old Hannah rapped
timidly at the door and informed me that "Mrs.
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