often brightly shown. The natural impulses of her heart lead her to
trample under foot all consideration of personal danger, fatigue, or
weakness, when the need of her loved ones demands her exertions.

This, however, is comparatively easy; it is only following the instincts
of her loving nature never to leave the sick room, where all her
anxiety, all her hopes and fears are centred,--never to breathe the
fresh air of heaven,--never to mingle in the social circle,--never to
rest the weary limbs, or close the languid eye. The excitement of love
and anxiety makes all this easy as long as the anxiety itself lasts: but
when danger is removed, and the more trying duties of tending the
convalescent begin, the genuine devotion of self-denial and
unselfishness is put to the test.

Nothing is more difficult than to bear with patience the apparently
unreasonable depression and ever-varying whims of the peevish
convalescent, whose powers of self-control have been prostrated by long
bodily exhaustion. Nothing is more trying than to find anxious exertions
for their comfort and amusement, either entirely unnoticed and useless,
or met with petulant contradiction and ungrateful irritation. Those who
have themselves experienced the helplessness caused by disease well know
how bitterly the trial is shared by the invalid herself. How deeply she
often mourns over the unreasonableness and irritation she is without
power to control, and what tears of anguish she sheds in secret over
those acts of neglect and words of unkindness her own ill-humour and
apparent ingratitude have unintentionally provoked.

Those who feel the sympathy of experience will surely wish, under all
such circumstances, to exercise untiring patience and unremitting
attention; but, however strong this wish may be, they cannot execute