And her filmy wandering eyes fixed themselves with an intensity of wistfulness on Mrs. Thornton's face. For a minute there was no change in its rigidness; it was stern and unmoved;--nay, but that the eyes of the sick woman were growing dim with the slow-gathering tears, she might have seen a dark cloud cross the cold features. And it was no thought of her son, or of her living daughter Fanny, that stirred her heart at last; but a sudden remembrance, suggested by something in the arrangement of the room,--of a little daughter--dead in infancy--long years ago--that, like a sudden sunbeam, melted the icy crust, behind which there was a real tender woman.

And her filmy wandering eyes fixed themselves wistfully on Mrs. Thornton's face. That face was stern and unmoved; if the sick woman's eyes had not grown dim, she might have seen a dark cloud cross the cold features. And it was no thought of her son, or of her living daughter Fanny, that stirred Mrs. Thornton's heart at last; but a sudden remembrance of a little daughter, dead in infancy long years ago that, like a sudden sunbeam, melted the ice, behind which there was a real tender woman.
