She scarcely hoped that she might sleep, and it was
only with a dutiful sense of conserving her strength and exerting the
utmost power of her will in the endeavor, that she lay down when her
berth was prepared. But the seclusion, the darkness within the curtains,
oppressed her, for unwittingly the sights and sounds of the outer world
had an influence to make her quit of herself, in a measure, and to focus
her mind on some trivial object of the immediate present. She drew the
blind at the window that she might see the scurrying landscape--the
fields, the woods, the river--and now and again the sparkling lights of a
city, looking in the distance as if some constellation, richly instarred
with golden glamours, had fallen and lay amidst the purple glooms of the
hills. For these elevations, and the frequent tunnels as the dawn drew
near, gave token that the mountains were not distant; the great central
basin of Tennessee lay far to the west; the engine was often climbing a
steep grade, as she noted from the sound.
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