86 THE BANK ACCOUNTANT. 



cruciating as hers should have terminated ; for months 

 past I could think of her only as a person stretched on the 

 rack, with now and then, perhaps, a transient glimpse 

 of enjoyment, for such is the economy of human feeling 

 that every cessation from suffering is positive pleasure 

 to the sufferer ; but what, alas ! had she to anticipate in 

 this world save pang after pang in prolonged and direful 

 succession, nights of pain and days of weariness, and 

 at length the opening of a door of escape, but only that 

 door through which she has just passed. I trust, 

 my own Lydia, that it is well with her. Her heart was 

 in the right place, it was ever an affectionate one, 

 perhaps too exquisitely so, but it seems finally to have 

 fixed on the worthiest of all objects. She had learned 

 to look for salvation through Him only in whom it is 

 alone to be found. There are many whom suffering 

 has the effect of so wrapping up in themselves that they 

 can feel for no one else. But it was not thus with Miss 

 Dunbar : she could think, even when at the worst, of the 

 little comforts and interests of her friends ; half her last 

 letter to me is occupied with a detail of what she had 

 thought and heard regarding my Traditions. 1 was 

 engaged in writing her when the note was brought me 

 which intimated her death. 



1 1 have got a rather severe cold, which hangs 

 about me. Never was cold better treated than mine ; 

 it eats and drinks like a gentleman. A shop-keeping 

 acquaintance gives it liquorice, Mr Ross gives it bram- 

 ble-berry jam, Mrs Denham has given it honey, and 

 now Mrs TYaser has sent it a pot of tamarinds. 'Twill 

 be a wonder if, in such circumstances, it goes away at 

 all. I have begun, but barely begun, my statistical 

 account of the parish ; it must, I am afraid, be both 

 dull and commonplace, for I am alike unwilling either 



