CHAPTER III.
Now Spring returns, but not to me returns
The vernal year my better days have known;
Dim in my breast life's dying taper burns,
And all the joys of life with health are flown.
A few weeks before the death of Mrs. Elton, a Mr. Lloyd, a Quaker, who was travelling with his wife and infant child, for the benefit of Mrs. Lloyd's health, had stopped at the inn in ———. Mrs. Lloyd was rapidly declining with a consumption. On this day she had, as is not unfrequent in the fluctuation of this disease, felt unusually well. Her cough was lulled by the motion of the carriage, and she had requested her husband to permit her to ride further than his prudence would have dictated.
The heat and unusual exertion, proved too much for her. In the evening she was seized with a hemorrhage, which reduced her so much as to render it unsafe to move her. She faded away quietly, and fell into the arms of death as gently as a leaf falleth from its stem, resigning her spirit in faith to him who gave it.
