Page:Glenarvon (Volume 1).djvu/66

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inspired: she murmured not; but submitted to the trial with the meek spirit of pious resignation.—"My dear, dear boy, my pretty Albert" would sometimes escape her, and a few tears would wait upon the exclamation; but her whole study was to share the disappointment, and lighten the sorrows of her husband; as well as to check the intemperate complaints, and soothe the more violent agitations of Lady Margaret.

But while the soul of the Duchess rose superior to the ills of life, her constitution, weakened by a long period of ill health, and by the agitations of extreme sensibility, was not in a state to resist so great a shock; and though she lingered upwards of a year, the real cause of her death could not be mistaken:—an inward melancholy preyed upon her spirits, which she combated in vain.—"Many have smiled in adversity," she would say; "but it is left for me to weep in prosperity:—such