The Superior
herself had been struck with the fever, and in three days she
was dead. Her vigils, her fastings, the wearying abnegations
of her stern, hard life had left her little strength for
struggling against the disease when it laid hold of her at
last, and so she too died in her cell one cold, bleak March
morning, with a hushed sisterhood gathered round her death-
bed, and gazing on it, as on that of a departing saint. Little
beloved, but much revered, Therese Linders also had got that
she had laboured for, and was now gone to prove the worth of
it; that which she had valued most in her narrow world had
been awarded her to the full--much honour, but small affection;
much glorification to her memory as to one of surpassing
sanctity, few tears of tender or regretful recollection. She
had had a strange, loveless life, with a certain pathos in it
too, as in the life of every human being, if looked at aright.
Not always, one may imagine, had such cold, relentless
pietism, such harsh indifference possessed her. She lies there
now, still and silent for evermore on earth, a crucifix
between her hands, tapers burning at her head and feet, with
the hard lines fixed on her cold grey face; and yet she also
had been a little, soft, round child, with yearnings too, like
other children, for a mother's kisses and a mother's love.
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