Though I struggled to conquer by every
means the passion, I at length yielded to his solicitations, and in a
fatal moment for my own peace I became his wife. In a few years his
conduct fully justified my demand for a separation, and I fondly hoped
to escape the fatal prophecy. Under the delusion that I had passed my
forty-seventh birthday, I was prevailed upon to believe in his
amendment, and to pardon him. I have, however, heard from undoubted
authority that I am only forty-seven this day, and I know that I am
about to die. I die, however, without the dread of death, fortified
as I am by the sacred precepts of Christianity and upheld by its
promises. When I am gone, I wish that you, my children, should unbind
this black ribbon and alone behold my wrist before I am consigned to
the grave.'
"She then requested to be left that she might lie down and compose
herself, and her children quitted the apartment, having desired her
attendant to watch her, and if any change came on to summon them to
her bedside. In an hour the bell rang, and they hastened to the call,
but all was over.
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