Her hair, ill-arranged, disordered in lying down throughout the
day in her reclining chair, showed in its redundance the splendor of its
tint and quality; her face, lately so wan and lean and ghastly, was
roseate, and the lines had strangely filled out in soft curves to their
wonted contour; her hands lay supple and white and quiet in her lap, with
not a tense ligament, not a throbbing fibre--delicate, beautiful
hands--it seemed odd to her companions to think how they had seen her
wring them in woe and clench them in despair. Her black gown with its
heavy folds of crape had an element of incongruity with that still,
assured, resolved presence, expressing so cheerful a poise, so confident
a control of circumstance. She did not expend herself in protest when at
ten o'clock they besought her to go to bed, to be called should the
telephone-bell ring. Her negation was so definite that they forbore
futile importunacy. She did not even waste her strength in urgency when
they declared that they would keep the vigil with her.
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