"A famishing man has never yet been hung for stealing to sustain life."
"You draw a strong comparison, aunt," said Louise, laughing in spite of herself.
"To meet a strong case," returned she. "It is a duty I owe you to use my best efforts to destroy this morbid melancholy which is preying on your spirits. I know nothing of the man you have loved. He may or may not be worthy of your affections. It is not his cause I plead. But I would divest you of the false glasses through which your sensitive brain, wrought on by high excitement, and shocked by a sudden calamity, has come to regard the events of your past life, and let you behold them again with your own natural sight. If I can effect this, I confidently trust to your good reasoning powers to set all right again."
Louise remained silent after her aunt ceased speaking, but her countenance evinced far more energy and hopefulness than at the commencement of the conversation. At length she rose and said, "Well, aunt, I think I have as much logic as my weak brain can digest in one night, so I'll retire to my bed-room, if you please."
In a few weeks, young Mrs. Edson, under the tuition of her strong-minded, sensible aunt, regained a share of her former vivacity, and declared she would be quite herself again were it not for that great black jail in the adjoining yard, which frowned on her every morning and loomed dismally in her dreams.
CHAPTER XLIII.
"Ah, why
Do you still keep apart, and walk alone,
And let such strong emotions stamp your brow,
As not betraying their full import, yet