"Never mind the hardship, if it be fitting," said Hope. "Hard or not hard, is it natural,--is it possible?" "I suppose witnessing death so often does lessen the feelings about it," observed Hester. "Yet I cannot fancy that one's mind could be at liberty for small concerns immediately after leaving a house full of mourners, and the sight of one in pain. There must be something distasteful in everything that meets one's eyes,--in the sunshine itself." "True. That is the feeling in such cases: but such cases seldom occur. Yes: I mean what I say. Such cases are very rare. The dying person is commonly old, or so worn out by illness as to make death at last no evil. When the illness is shorter, it is usually found that a few hours in the sick room do the work of months of common life, in reconciling the minds of survivors." "I am sure that is true," observed Margaret. "It is so generally the case that I know no set of circumstances in which I should more confidently reckon on the calmness, forethought, and composure of the persons I have to deal with than in the family of a dying person. The news comes suddenly to the neighbours: all the circumstances rush at once into their imaginations: all their recollections and feelings about the sufferer agitate them in quick succession; and they naturally suppose the near friends must be more agitated, in proportion to their nearness." "The watchers, meanwhile," said Hester, "have had time in the long night to go over the past and the future, again and again; and by morning all seems so familiar, that they think they can never be surprised into grief again." "So familiar," said Mr Hope, "that their minds are at liberty for the smallest particulars of their duty. I usually find them ready for the minutest directions I may have to give." "Yes: the time for surprise,--for consternation,--is long afterwards," said Hester, with some emotion. "When the whole has become settled and finished in other minds, the nearest mourners begin to wake up to their mourning." "And thus," said Margaret, "the strongest agitation is happily not witnessed." "Happily not," said Mr Hope. "I doubt whether anybody's strongest agitations ever are witnessed. I doubt whether the sufferer himself is often aware of what are really his greatest sufferings; and he is so ashamed of them that he hides them from himself when it is possible. I cannot but think that any grief which reveals itself is very endurable." "Is not that rather hard?" asked Margaret. "How does it seem to you hard? Is it not merciful that we can keep our worst sorrows,--that we are disposed, as it were forced, to keep them from afflicting our friends?" "But is it not saying that bereavement of friends is not the greatest of sorrows, while all seem to agree that it is?"