Mary visited the continent,
and sought health in different climates; but her nerves were not to be restored
to their former state. She then retired to her house in the country,
established manufactories, threw the estate into small farms; and continually
employed herself this way to dissipate care, and banish unavailing regret. She
visited the sick, supported the old, and educated the young.
These occupations engrossed
her mind; but there were hours when all her former woes would return and haunt
her.—Whenever she did, or said, any thing she thought Henry would have approved of—she could not avoid thinking with anguish, of
the rapture his approbation ever conveyed to her heart—a heart in which there
was a void, that even benevolence and religion could not fill. The latter
taught her to struggle for resignation; and the former rendered life
supportable.
Her delicate state of health
did not promise long life. In moments of solitary sadness, a gleam of joy would
dart across her mind—She thought she was hastening to that world where there
is neither marrying, nor giving in marriage.