THE GOOD MISS KENDRICKs. 11

parish! Life has become hateful to me~would to
God that I had died, or might die ere long!”

Joanna had the patience of an angel, and answered
her sister's repinings with loving and gentle words.
Winter came on; and then spring; and again the idea
was revived of Dorothy’s going to Leonard, for change
of air; whilst Joanna, whose lover was impatient for
his marriage, made her preparations for this event,
But to this proposal the poor invalid would not listen.
She entertained the most fixed, and as it seemed ob-
stinate, determination not to visit her brother 3 nor
would she assign any reason for so doing. Everybody
but Joanna lost patience with her ; but she, never,
“ She will become accustomed in time to her misfor-
tune,” said she to her friends, and, above all, to the
mother and sister of her affianced lover ; “and in
the meantime, we must have patience with her, as
with a sick child. She is now,” said she, “ suffering
from a mind diseased, which is worse than sickness of
the body. Let us only have patience with her ;” and
from month to month Joanna delayed her marriage,
that she should not at least take so sad an invalid
into the house of her husband. Day after day came
his mother and sister, sometimes together, and some-
times alone, who lost no opportunity of dropping
hints to poor Dorothy on the Christian duty of sub-
mission to our afflictions, and renunciatidn of our own
wills,

“Go, and take a walk, and get a mouthful of fresh
air, for you look as pale as a ghost, with all this
watching and anxiety, night and day,” said they con-
tinually to Joanna, in the hearing of her sister ; “and
we will mind the shop, and talk to Dorothy, while
you are gone.”