effectually concealed this from her, and from his daughter, whom he
endeavoured to re-animate with hopes that her constant assiduities
would not be unavailing. The physician, when asked by St. Aubert for
his opinion of the disorder, replied, that the event of it depended
upon circumstances which he could not ascertain. Madame St. Aubert
seemed to have formed a more decided one; but her eyes only gave
hints of this. She frequently fixed them upon her anxious friends
with an expression of pity, and of tenderness, as if she anticipated
the sorrow that awaited them, and that seemed to say, it was for
their sakes only, for their sufferings, that she regretted life. On
the seventh day, the disorder was at its crisis. The physician
assumed a graver manner, which she observed, and took occasion, when
her family had once quitted the chamber, to tell him, that she
perceived her death was approaching. 'Do not attempt to deceive me,'
said she, 'I feel that I cannot long survive. I am prepared for the
event, I have long, I hope, been preparing for it. Since I have not
long to live, do not suffer a mistaken compassion to induce you to
flatter my family with false hopes. If you do, their affliction will
only be the heavier when it arrives: I will endeavour to teach them
resignation by my example.'

The physician was affected; he promised to obey her, and told St.
Aubert, somewhat abruptly, that there was nothing to expect. The
latter was not philosopher enough to restrain his feelings when he
received this information; but a consideration of the increased
affliction which the observance of his grief would occasion his wife,
enabled him, after some time, to command himself in her presence.
Emily was at first overwhelmed with the intelligence; then, deluded
by the strength of her wishes, a hope sprung up in her mind that her
mother would yet recover, and to this she pertinaciously adhered