could foretell events, Mrs. Blyth, in the opinion of all her medical
advisers, was doomed for the rest of her life never to rise again from
the bed on which she lay; except, perhaps, to be sometimes moved to the
sofa, or, in the event of some favorable reaction, to be wheeled about
occasionally in an invalid chair.

What the shock of this intelligence was, both to husband and wife, no
one ever knew; they nobly kept it a secret even from each other. Mrs.
Blyth was the first to recover courage and calmness. She begged, as an
especial favor, that Valentine would seek consolation, where she knew
he must find it sooner or later, by going back to his studio, and
resuming his old familiar labors, which had been suspended from the
time when her illness had originally declared itself.

On the first day when, in obedience to her wishes, he sat before his
picture again--the half-finished picture from which he had been
separated for so many months--on that first day, when the friendly
occupation of his life seemed suddenly to have grown strange to him;
when his brush wandered idly among the colors, when his tears dropped
fast on the palette every time he looked down on it; when he tried hard
to work as usual, though only for half an hour, only on simple
background places in the composition; and still the brush made false
touches, and still the tints would not mingle as they should, and still
the same words, repeated over and over again, would burst from his
lips: "Oh, poor Lavvie! oh, poor, dear, dear Lavvie!"--even then, the
spirit of that beloved art, which he had always followed so humbly and
so faithfully, was true to its divine mission, and comforted and upheld
him at the last bitterest moment when he laid down his palette in
despair.