The story of my life ; or, The sunshine and shadow of seventy years / by Mary A. Livermore ... with hitherto unrecorded incidents and recollections of three years' experience as an army nurse in the great Civil War, and reminiscences of twenty-five years' experiences on the lecture platform ... to which is added six of her most popular lectures ... with portraits and one hundred and twenty engravings from designs by eminent artists ...

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THE STORY OF MY LIFE.

Laura still slept. Please God, she would wake in improved
condition! The house was still, for the revelers of the
night before were locked in slumber, and the servants had
received orders to maintain unbroken quietness, till they
were otherwise bidden.
The sun was slanting westward when Laura woke, and
the whole plantation seemed to wake at the same moment.
The birds began their vesper songs,- children laughed and
shouted at their play,- servants joked with one another,
and sang plantation songs while at their work,--the whole
outside world seemed gay and glad. We too were happy for
one brief hour, and then the cruel anguish of the night
again assailed the sick girl, and once more she went down
into the valley of death in her agonizing battle for life. I
could not endure it longer It brought back the memory of
the never-to-be-forgotten night, when, two years before, I
had watched beside my sister Rachel, whose last hours were
so filled with pain and torture as to reconcile us to her departure. I hastened to my room and prayed aloud for
Laura, as I had for my sister "0 God, receive her! Let
this anguish cease, and we will not murmur at her death.
We will submit!" Mrs. Henderson, who rarely manifested
emotion, was obliged to leave the sick-room to hide the tears
that Laura must not see.
There were pauses in her sufferings when the tense
muscles relaxed,-- when the grip of pain was loosened, and
the struggle for breath became less terrible. But midnight
came before there was lasting surcease from pain, when,
weary and worn, as with months of illness, Laura suddenly
fell asleep. Then we faced the situation and discussed the
probabilities that confronted us. Dr. Singleton spoke plainly. "She'is likely to have a recurrence of this exhausting
suffering when she wakes, and she cannot live through an