last take their bodies again, just as the wildflowers in the wood
sprang up with their own shape and beauty, each according to the little
seed that had lain dead and forgotten since autumn had sighed its dirge
above their myriad tiny graves, burying the summer as sadly as men bury
those they dearly love.

And yet Hilda never put any of those thoughts into words, though in her
books she loved best those words that expressed her half-formulated
feelings. Had she been removed to the noise and the whirl of city life,
she would very probably have known how to define what she had lost, she
might even have made others feel what she herself had so keenly felt.
But in the silent towers of her home, or amidst that noiseless, ever-
growing life that belongs to undisturbed nature, all she could have
wished to express was expressed for her, in a grander language than
that of man. She had no need of spending long hours in reverie and
contemplation, as people do who are not used to their surroundings, or
who compare their present with their past. Constant occupation had
become a part of her being, and unceasing small activity in household
matters the condition of her life. Heaven knows, there was enough to do
between making and mending everything she wore, keeping in order even
the small part of the gigantic building which she and her mother
inhabited, cultivating as best she could the plot of ground in the
castle yard which was all the land left to her, the last of her name,
and, in the midst of all this manual labour, in maintaining that
prescribed amount of appearance, from which she had never been allowed
to deviate since she had been a little child. A spotless perfection of
neatness was indeed the only luxury left within reach of the two
ladies, and for that one available satisfaction there was no trouble
they would not cheerfully undergo. But these manifold household labours
did not vulgarise Hilda's character. If she enjoyed the luxury of