Recollections of plenty and rural peace came up from her clear,
tranquil childhood, which seemed to have been another state of
existence; flashes of her latter life-its comfort and abundance-gleams
of maternal pride in her children who had been growing up about her to
ease and independence.
She lived through all the phases which her simple life had ever worn, in
the few moments of repose after the dizzy effort of ascending; as the
thin blood left her whirling brain and returned to its shrunken
channels, she grew more clearly conscious of the terrible present, and
remembered the weary quest upon which she came. It was not the memory of
thought, it was that of love, the old tugging at the heart that had
never relaxed long enough to say, "Now I am done; I can bear no more!"
The miserable ones down there - for them her wavering life came back; at
thought of them she turned her face listlessly the way it had so often
gazed. But this time something caused it to flush as if the blood, thin
and cold as it was, would burst its vessels! What was it? Nothing that
she saw, for her eyes were quite dimmed by the sudden access of
excitement! It was the sound of voices! By a superhuman effort she kept
herself from falling! Was it reality or delusion? She must at least live
to know the truth.
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