On finding that she was held
fast, she looked at them with blazing eyes, and struggled to set herself
free; but on finding her efforts vain, she panted deeply three or four
times, threw back her head, and fell into a fit that, from its violence,
resembled epilepsy. After a lapse of ten minutes or so, the spasmodic
action, having probably wasted her physical strength, ceased, and she
lay in a quiet trance; so quiet, indeed, that it might have passed for
death, were it not for the deep expression of pain and suffering which
lay upon her face, and betrayed the fury of the moral tempest which
swept through her heart and brain. All the mother's grief now was
hushed--all the faculties of her soul were now concentrated on her
daughter, and absorbed by the intense anxiety she felt for her recovery.
She sat behind the poor girl, and drew her body back so that her head
rested on her bosom, to which she pressed her, kissing her passive lips
with streaming eyes.
"O, darling Nannie!" she exclaimed, "strive and rouse yourself; it is
your loving mother that asks you. Waken up, poor misled and heart-broken
girl, waken up; I forgive you all your errors.
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