" I suppose, by the way, this is one source
of the satisfaction that some real mourners find in wearing mourning, as
they say, "_for_ the dead,"--a vague longing, like mine, after they have
passed beyond human care, to do or sacrifice still something more for
them.
After that, there seemed to be nothing more that I could do for Fanny,
nor anything that, for myself, I cared to do. From habit only, I
employed myself. Julia, as she begged that I would call her, had a large
basket of baby-clothes cut out. At that I seated myself after breakfast;
and at that I often worked till bedtime, like a machine,--startled
sometimes from my revery, indeed, by seeing how much was done, but
saying nothing, hearing little, and shedding not a tear.
Julia would have remonstrated; but the Doctor said to her: "Let her
alone for the present, my dear; she has had a great shock. Trust to
nature. This cannot last long with a girl like Katy. It is half of it
over-fatigue, carried on from her school-keeping to add to the present
account." To me he said: "Katy, you may sew, if you like, but not
in-doors, I will carry your basket out for you into the arbor; and in
the afternoon I am going to take you to ride in the woods."
Our past selves are often a riddle that our present selves cannot read;
but I suspect the real state of the case was, partly that, as the Doctor
believed, I was for the time being exhausted in body and stunned in
mind, and partly that, in those young, impetuous days, grief was such an
all-convulsing passion with me, when I yielded to it, that to the utmost
of my strength I resisted it at the outset, and seldom dared suffer
myself to suffer at all.
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