With the opening of cold weather the seeming betterment in Mrs.
Britton's health proved but temporary. As the winter advanced she failed
rapidly, until, unable to sit up, she lay on a low couch, wheeled from
room to room to afford all the rest and change possible. Day by day her
pallor grew more and more like the waxen petals of the lily, while the
fatal rose flush in her cheek deepened, and her eyes, unnaturally large
and lustrous, had in them the look of those who dwell in the borderland.
She realized her condition as fully as those about her, but there was
neither fear nor regret in the eyes, which, fixed on the glory invisible
to them, caught and reflected the light of the other world, till, in the
last days, those watching her saw her face "as it had been the face of
an angel."
No demonstration of sorrow marred the peace in which her soul dwelt the
last days of its stay, for the very room seemed hallowed, a place too
sacred for the intrusion of any personal grief.