"The window was open. Hers looked upon those green trees you see at the back of the house, and the fresh air came pleasantly in: but it seemed unheeded by the sufferer. She was clothed in a long white sleeping-gown. One arm was thrown above her head; her hair had gotten from her comb, and fell in waves and curls of the utmost beauty and luxuriance almost to her feet. She lay with her face upward, resting upon the back of her head, almost as motionless as a corpse: her features were fixed; her eyes rested upon the top of the bed. She seemed lost in thought. Never in my life have I seen any thing so supremely beautiful." "Ella--Ella!" he just muttered. "When we approached the side of the bed, she first perceived us, gave a little start, glanced at the matron, and then, with a look of rather displeased surprise at me-- "'I beg your pardon if I intrude upon you,' I said. 'Mrs. Penrose asked me to pay you a visit. I am but just returned from the country. I spend a good deal of my time when in town with the sick ladies here, and they seem to like to have me; but if you do not I will go away directly.' "She made an impatient and half-contemptuous motion of the head as I used the words 'sick ladies;' but she fixed her large, lustrous eyes upon me as I went on speaking--saying nothing, however, when I concluded, but keeping those large dark eyes fixed upon my face. "'Shall I go?' I said, after a little time thus spent. "She made a gesture as if to stop me--but without moving those large mournful eyes, in which I could see that tears were slowly gathering. "Mrs. Penrose had already left the room. I said no more; but took a chair, sat down by the bedside, and laid mine upon her thin, fevered, but most exquisitely-formed hand. "I gave a gentle, gentle pressure; it was faintly, very faintly returned; and then the tears, which had so slowly gathered into her eyes, fell in a few large drops over her faded cheeks. "'This is lonely, desolate work, do what we will,' I said, as a sort of answer to these few large tears, falling so quietly and still, and without convulsion of features--the tears of a strong but softened mind. 'To be sick, and without familiar faces--to be sick and among strangers--is a sorrowful, sorrowful thing--but we do our best.' "'O, you are good--very good,' she said. "'There is nothing _I_ feel so much myself as this destitution of the heart; solitude in sickness is to me almost more than I can bear; and, therefore, it is, perhaps, that I am almost troublesome in offering my society to those here who have not many friends and visitors--especially to the young. I can bear solitude myself better now, badly as I do bear it, than when I was young. Society seems, to the young, like the vital air upon which they exist.'