But my grief was unavailing. My infant was no more; nor could all my sighs impart to its little tender frame the breath of a moment. I rent my winding-sheet, and wrapped in it my lovely child. I placed it on my bosom, its soft arm folded round my neck, and its pale cold cheek resting upon mine. Thus did its lifeless limbs repose, while I covered it with kisses, talked to it, wept, and moaned over it without remission, day or night. Camilla entered my prison regularly once every twenty-four hours, to bring me food. In spite of her flinty nature, she could not behold this spectacle unmoved. She feared that grief so excessive would at length turn my brain, and in truth I was not always in my proper senses. From a principle of compassion she urged me to permit the corse to be buried: but to this I never would consent. I vowed not to part with it while I had life: its presence was my only comfort, and no persuasion could induce me to give it up. It soon became a mass of putridity, and to every eye was a loathsome and disgusting object; to every eye but a mother’s. In vain did human feelings bid me recoil from this emblem of mortality with repugnance: I withstood, and vanquished that repugnance. I persisted in holding my infant to my bosom, in lamenting it, loving it, adoring it!

Hour after hour have I passed upon my sorry couch, contemplating what had once been my child: I endeavoured to retrace its features through the livid corruption, with which they were overspread: during my confinement this sad occupation was my only delight; and at that time worlds should not have bribed me to give it up. Even when released from my prison, I brought away my child in my arms. The representations of my two kind friends⁠—(Here she took the hands of the marchioness and Virginia, and pressed them alternately to her lips)⁠—at length persuaded me to resign my unhappy infant to the grave. Yet I parted from it with reluctance: however, reason at length prevailed; I suffered it to be taken from me, and it now reposes in consecrated ground.

I before mentioned that regularly once a day Camilla brought me food. She sought not to embitter my sorrows with reproach: she bad me, ’tis true, resign all hopes of liberty and worldly happiness; but she encouraged me to bear with patience my temporary distress, and advised me to draw comfort from religion.