In truth, both intellect
and imagination were being overstrained by the constant
succession of new images, new ideas, new thoughts, that
presented themselves to her. She by no means grew accustomed
to churches--not in the sense, at any rate, which her father
had hoped would be the result of his new system. It was not
possible that she should, while so much remained that was
mysterious and unexplained; she only wearied her small brain
with the effort to find the explanation for all these new
perplexities, which she felt must exist somewhere, though she
could not find it; add to this, these long conversations, this
music, with its strange, vague suggestions, and even the
thousand novelties of the picturesque Italian life around her,
not one of which was lost on her impressionable little mind,
and we need not wonder that she began to suffer from an
excitement that gathered in strength from day to day. She grew
thin, morbid, nervous, ate almost nothing, and lost her usual
vivacity, sitting absorbed in dreamy fits, from which it was
difficult to arouse her, and which were very different from
the quiet, happy silence in which she used to remain contented
by her father's side for hours.
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