But I know I shall be better for the occupation.' 'And you will let me still come and see you frequently ?' 'I should miss you very much if you ceased to,' was Emily's answer.
Both felt that a difficulty had been surmounted, though they looked at it from different sides.
October passed, and the first half of November.

Mrs.Hood had not risen from her bed, and there seemed slight chance that she ever would; she was sinking into hopeless imbecility.

Emily's task in that sick-room was one which a hospital nurse would have found it burdensome to support; she bore it without a sign of weariness or of failure in physical strength.

Incessant companionship with bodily disease was the least oppressive of her burdens; the state of her mother's mind afflicted her far more.

Occasionally the invalid would appear in full possession of her intellect, and those were the hardest days; at such times she was incessantly querulous; hours long she lay and poured forth complaints and reproaches.