the period of the change.

Poor Eleanor Bold! How well does that widow's cap become her, and
the solemn gravity with which she devotes herself to her new duties.
Poor Eleanor!

Poor Eleanor! I cannot say that with me John Bold was ever a
favourite. I never thought him worthy of the wife he had won. But
in her estimation he was most worthy. Hers was one of those feminine
hearts which cling to a husband, not with idolatry, for worship can
admit of no defect in its idol, but with the perfect tenacity of ivy.
As the parasite plant will follow even the defects of the trunk which
it embraces, so did Eleanor cling to and love the very faults of her
husband. She had once declared that whatever her father did should
in her eyes be right. She then transferred her allegiance, and became
ever ready to defend the worst failings of her lord and master.

And John Bold was a man to be loved by a woman; he was himself
affectionate; he was confiding and manly; and that arrogance of
thought, unsustained by first-rate abilities, that attempt at being
better than his neighbours which jarred so painfully on the feelings
of his acquaintance, did not injure him in the estimation of his wife.

Could she even have admitted that he had a fault, his early death
would have blotted out the memory of it. She wept as for the loss
of the most perfect treasure with which mortal woman had ever been
endowed; for weeks after he was gone the idea of future happiness
in this world was hateful to her; consolation, as it is called, was
insupportable, and tears and sleep were her only relief.