Her duties as daughter and sister and friend, as well as those to the neighbouring poor, were, if possible, more actively and perseveringly performed than they had even been before.

Not one of her former favourite employments was thrown aside.

The complete unselfishness of her nature was more clearly visible than ever, and was it strange that she became dearer than ever to those with whom she lived?
Her parents felt she was twining herself more and more around their hearts, and beheld, with inexpressible anguish, that though her young mind was so strong, her fragile frame was too weak to support the constant struggle.

She never complained; there was no outward failing of health, but there was a nameless something hovering round her, which even her doting parents could not define, but which they felt too forcibly to shake off; and notwithstanding every effort to expel the idea, that nameless something brought with it alarm--alarm defined indeed too clearly; but of which even to each other they could not speak.
Time passed, and Herbert Hamilton, as the period of his ordination was rapidly approaching, lost many of those painfully foreboding feelings which for the last three years had so constantly and painfully assailed him.

He felt stronger in health than he had ever remembered to have done, and the spirit of cheerfulness, and hope, and joy breathing in the letters of his Mary affected him with the same unalloyed feelings of anticipated happiness; sensations of holiness, of chastened thanksgiving pervaded his every thought, the inward struggle appeared passed.