We did not remonstrate with
her then, but attended to her more immediate physical wants, there was
something worth caring for in the little waif, and we determined to do
it slowly and surely.
Before the week expired we had initiated her into the ways of the
house, and transformed her exterior, to begin with, into that of a
civilized and respectable member of the great human family.
CHAPTER XIII.
The winter was coming on, as Cousin Bessie had said every leaf was
blown from its bough, and the Autumn sky was grayer and cloudier than
ever.
It was a lonely season, especially for one with such a heart full of
memories as mine, the wind spoke to me in the most plaintive of
whispers, now with the voice of one absent friend, now with that of
another. I had no definite grief at this period under the safe
protecting roof of my good, kind relatives, only that there was an
emptiness about my comfort, which made it incomplete and not quite as
satisfactory as it should have been.
Something was stirring in my breast as if with fluttering wings
against these fetters of the flesh! Something was always asking,
always wishing, always urging me, to do I knew not what '_Taedium
vitae_.' It is the merciless enemy of mortal man! the robber of our
peace, the skeleton in the closet, the dreg in our pleasure-cup, the
ruthless spoiler of our fancy-woven webs! It is the separate sorrow of
men and women, and is the summing up of the stones of all human lives.
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