Then I learned how deep were the fountains of
tenderness within me. My heart overflowed with an intense desire for
affection, when I saw that I did not possess it. Oh! how often I
looked upon mother's face, unobserved, and felt that my love for her
was but a wasted shower. At that time of bitterness, how sad was the
revelation that came up from the very depths of my soul, teaching me
a truth fraught with suffering--that affection is life itself! I
felt that it was my destiny never to be cheered by its blessed light
and warmth. Months passed away, and I closed up my heart; a
coldness, a stoic apathy came over me, which was sometimes broken by
a slight thing; the flood-gates of feeling gave way, and I wept with
a passionate sorrow--over my own sinfulness--over my own lonely
heart, without one joy to shed a glow on its rude desolation. Oh!
then, when I was softened, when I could pray, and feel that the Lord
listened to me, I would have been a different being, if mother's
hand had been laid fondly upon my head, if her eyes had filled with
tears, and I could have leaned upon her bosom and wept. But I was
unloved, and my heart grew hard again."
"Don't say that you are unloved," interrupted Ann, pressing
Christine to her heart, and sobbing with an abandonment of feeling.
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