For in such case, worn out by anxiety, and it may be by
much watching, our very excess of grief rocks itself to sleep,
before we have had time to realise its cause; and we waken, with a
start of agony like a fresh stab, to the consciousness of the one
awful vacancy, which shall never, while the world endures, be filled
again.
The day brought its burden of duty to Mrs. Wilson. She felt bound
by regard, as well as by etiquette, to go and see her future
daughter-in-law. And by an old association of ideas (perhaps of
death with churchyards, and churches with Sunday) she thought it
necessary to put on her best, and latterly unused clothes, the
airing of which on a little clothes-horse before the fire seemed to
give her a not unpleasing occupation.
When Jem returned home late in the evening succeeding John Barton's
death, weary and oppressed with the occurrences and excitements of
the day, he found his mother busy about her mourning, and much
inclined to talk. Although he longed for quiet, he could not avoid
sitting down and answering her questions.
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