Page:The Clergyman's Wife.djvu/104

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A Plethora of Happiness.

body of their noblest powers! Ah, Angelica! I laughingly said to your husband that I should discover the disease under which you are laboring, and I hardly thought to keep my word so easily. Your ailment is a plethora of happiness, a surfeit of good gifts. You have not paid your tribute of gratitude to the lavish Giver of these blessings, by putting them to use. You have not made them reach others; they have not radiated from you, as their centre, and fallen brightly on a wide circle extending around you, and they turn to curses, to disease, and weigh upon you like a nightmare. Privation would teach you their value. Sorrow would perhaps restore the tone to your mind, reinvigorate your body, and bring back the consciousness of happiness which, for the time being, you have lost."

Angelica listened as though the weary spell under which she was bound had suddenly been broken. She was no longer reclining upon the sofa, but sitting up erect and strong. Her lips quivered and her blue eyes dilated, as she gazed upon Ruth's beaming countenance, and drank in her words. When the latter ceased speaking there was a pause of a few seconds; then Angelica replied, with an emotion which animated her whole frame and illumined her countenance with a higher beauty than it had ever yet known:

"Ruth, I wish I could feel as you do!"

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