She was carried home
senseless. Her life was for some time despaired of, and it was months
before she recovered her health; but she never had perfectly recovered
her mind: it still remained unsettled with respect to her lover's
fate.
"The subject," continued my informant, "is never mentioned in her
hearing; but she sometimes speaks of it herself, and it seems as
though there were some vague train of impressions in her mind, in
which hope and fear are strangely mingled--some imperfect idea of her
lover's shipwreck, and yet some expectation of his return.
"Her parents have tried every means to cheer her, and to banish these
gloomy images from her thoughts. They assemble round her the young
companions in whose society she used to delight; and they will work,
and chat, and sing, and laugh, as formerly; but she will sit silently
among them, and will sometimes weep in the midst of their gayety; and,
if spoken to, will make no reply, but look up with streaming eyes, and
sing a dismal little song, which she has learned somewhere, about a
shipwreck. It makes every one's heart ache to see her in this way, for
she used to be the happiest creature in the village.
"She passes the greater part of the time with Eugene's mother; whose
only consolation is her society, and who dotes on her with a mother's
tenderness.
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