All the wisdom in the world will not cure a girl's heart-sickness when
she has flung away the treasures of her love upon a worthless object.
And so the days went by, peacefully, but sadly; for the shadow of doom
hung heavily over the house upon the Fell. Nobody who looked upon Lady
Maulevrier could doubt that her days were numbered, that the oil was
waxing low in the lamp of life. The end, the awful, mysterious end, was
drawing near; and she who was called was making no such preparations as
the Christian makes to answer the dread summons. As she had lived, she
meant to die--an avowed unbeliever. More than once Mary had taken
courage, and had talked to her grandmother of the world beyond, the
blessed hope of re-union with the friends we have lost, in a new and
brighter life, only to be met by the sceptic's cynical smile, the
materialist's barren creed.
'My dearest, we know nothing except the immutable laws of material life.
All the rest is a dream--a beautiful dream, if you like--a consolation
to that kind of temperament which can take comfort from dreams; but for
anyone who has read much, and thought much, and kept as far as possible
on a level with the scientific intellect of the age--for such an one,
Mary, these old fables are too idle.
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