Aye! crumple the sheet in your grasp, and sink to the earth--a crushed thing! struck down from the zenith of your pride and bliss--crushed and mangled--but living and _feeling!_ Grief does not always stun--it seldom kills--you must live, although each lacerated heart-string is crying out for death! Say not that it came without warning! Was there no voice in your early bereavement--in the stern lessons of your girlhood--in the frustration of an hundred cherished purposes--in Lynn's suicidal madness--in Ellen's remorse--in Charley's withered heart? Why were you made to feel, see, know these, if not to teach you, that they who lean upon mortal's love trust to the weakest of rotten reeds--they "who sow the wind, must reap the whirl wind"--black, bitter, scorching! CHAPTER XX. "I never thought you unreasonable before, Ida." "I am sorry you should now, Carry." "How can I help it, when after travelling with us for weeks you suddenly resolve to return to Eastern Virginia by yourself; and to that lonesome place in the country, which you have not visited for years!" "I have an escort; a gentleman who is on his way to Richmond, and will take charge of me." "But why this notion, just as we decided to go north? Has your curiosity to behold Niagara diminished since your sight of 'the Bridge?'" "Frankly and truly, I do not care to see it. I would not ride to the House Mountain yonder, if Mont Blanc, the Lake of Como, and the Great Fall were to be seen from the other side." "Do you hear that, Arthur?" said Carry, despairingly, to her husband, who was reading. "No--what is it?" "This obstinate young lady is about to deprive us of the honour of her company. She is going back to Staunton to-morrow." "To the Lunatic Hospital?" inquired Arthur, putting aside his book. "You are not in earnest, Ida? Are you tired of us; or do you dislike our sketched route? If the last, we will alter it." "And if the first, we will alter ourselves," interposed Carry, laughingly. "I would have you and your plans remain as they are. I am not well, and require rest--not change. My desire to see old Sunnybank is not a caprice, as Carry supposes; I have had it in contemplation for a long time. Mr. Read deterred me from it by representations of the discomfort I would encounter; the only white man left on the plantation being the overseer. This summer he has been removed, and his place given to a former tenant of mother's; a man of family; and the accommodations, which serve for them, will keep me from hardship." "She is sick," said Carry, when Ida retired. "She has not been herself lately. Were it not that she is used to dissipation, I should think that the round of parties, after our wedding, overtasked her strength. Yet, she enjoyed them." "Her malady may be of the mind," said Dr. Dana, thoughtfully. "Do you consider this probable?" "Oh, no! she was well and happy when she came to us; and what can have occurred since to affect her?"