This was the first time she had yet shown any tendency, so far as I had
seen, to be interested in anything, or to talk to me. I seized the
occasion, and gave her, as well as I could, the sad and pretty picture
that remained, and always will, in the vacant air, when I think of her,
on the mysterious retina of memory.

How filmy they are! the moonlight shines through them, as through the
phantom Dane in Retzch's outlines--colour without substance. How they
come, wearing for ever the sweetest and pleasantest look of their earthly
days. Their sweetest and merriest tones hover musically in the distance;
how far away, how near to silence, yet how clear! And so it is with our
remembrance of the immortal part. It is the loveliest traits that remain
with us perennially; all that was noblest and most beautiful is there, in
a changeless and celestial shadow; and this is the resurrection of the
memory, the foretaste and image which the 'Faithful Creator' accords us
of the resurrection and glory to come--the body redeemed, the spirit made
perfect.

On a cabinet near to where she stood was a casket of ormolu, which she
unlocked, and took out a miniature, opened, and looked at it for a long
time. I knew very well whose it was, and watched her countenance; for, as
I have said, she interested me strangely. I suppose she knew I was
looking at her; but she showed always a queenlike indifference about what
people might think or observe. There was no sentimental softening; but
her gaze was such as I once saw the same proud and handsome face turn
upon the dead--pale, exquisite, perhaps a little stern. What she read
there--what procession of thoughts and images passed by--threw neither
light nor shadow on her face. Its apathy interested me inscrutably.