Consoled, as far as any consolation could reach her, by the consciousness of doing good, as well as by a strong sense of religion, she led a life which we regret so few in her social position are disposed to imitate.  For many years before the period at which our narrative commences, she had given up all hope of ever recovering her child, if indeed he was alive.  Whether he had perished by an accidental death in some place where his body could not be discovered—­whether he had been murdered, or kidnapped, were dreadful contingencies that wrung the mother’s soul with agony.  But as habits of endurance give to the body stronger powers of resistance, so does time by degrees strengthen the mind against the influence of sorrow.  A blameless life, therefore, varied only by its unobtrusive charities, together with a firm trust in the goodness of God, took much of the sting from affliction, but could not wholly eradicate it.  Had her child died in her arms—­had she closed its innocent eyes with her own hands, and given the mother’s last kiss to those pale lips on which the smile of affection was never more to sit—­had she been able to go, and, in the fulness of her childless heart, pour her sorrow over his grave—­she would have felt that his death, compared with the darkness and uncertainty by which she was enveloped, would have been comparatively a mitigated dispensation, for which the heart ought to feel almost thankful.

The death of Corbet, her steward, found her in that mournful apathy under which she had labored for year’s.  Indeed she resembled a certain class of invalids who are afflicted with some secret ailment, which is not much felt unless when an unexpected pressure, or sudden change of posture, causes them to feel the pang which it inflicts.  From the moment that the words of the dying man shed the serenity of hope over her mind, and revived in her heart all those tender aspirations of maternal affection which, as associated with the recovery of her child, had nearly perished out of it—­from that moment, we say, the extreme bitterness of her affliction had departed.

She had already suffered too much, however, to allow herself to be carried beyond unreasonable bounds by sanguine and imprudent expectations.  Her rule of heart and of conduct was simple, but true—­she trusted in God and in the justice of his providence.

On hearing the stranger’s want of success, she felt more affected by that than by the faint consolation which he endeavored to hold out to her, and a few bitter tears ran slowly down her cheeks.

“Hope had altogether gone,” said she, “and with hope that power in the heart to cherish the sorrow which it sustains; and the certainty of his death had thrown me into that apathy, which qualifies but cannot destroy the painful consequences of reflection.  That which presses upon me now, is the fear that although he may still live, as unquestionably Corbet on his death-bed had assured me, yet it is possible we may never recover him.  In that case he is dead to me—­lost forever.”