"Yet loss of fortune, though it mortified my pride, did not prove my worst calamity. Perhaps it was scarcely to be ranked with evils, since it furnished a touchstone by which my husband's affections were to be tried; especially as the issue of the trial was auspicious; for my misfortune seemed only to heighten the interest which my character had made for me in the hearts of all that knew me. The paternal regards of Sir Ralph had always been tender, but that tenderness seemed now to be redoubled.
"New events made this consolation still more necessary. My unhappy mother!—She was nearer to the dreadful scene when it happened; had no surviving object to beguile her sorrow; was rendered, by long habit, more dependent upon fortune than her child.
"A melancholy, always mute, was the first effect upon my mother. Nothing could charm her eye, or her ear. Sweet sounds that she once loved, and especially when her darling child was the warbler, were heard no longer. How, with streaming eyes, have I sat and watched the dear lady, and endeavoured to catch her eye, to rouse her attention!—But I must not think of these things.
"But even this distress was little in comparison with what was to come. A frenzy thus mute, motionless, and vacant, was succeeded by fits, talkative, outrageous, requiring incessant superintendence, restraint, and even violence.
"Why led you me thus back to my sad remembrances? Excuse me for the present. I will tell you the rest some other time; to-morrow."
To-morrow, accordingly, my friend resumed her story.
"Let me now make an end," said she, "of my mournful narrative, and never, I charge you, do any thing to revive it again.
"Deep as was my despondency, occasioned by these calamities, I was not destitute of some joy. My husband and my child were lovely and affectionate. In their caresses, in their welfare, I found peace; and might still have found it, had there not been——. But why should I open afresh wounds which time has imperfectly closed? But the story must some time be told to you, and the sooner it is told and dismissed to forgetfulness the better.
"My ill fate led me into company with a woman too well known in the idle and dissipated circles. Her character was not unknown to me. There was nothing in her features or air to obviate disadvantageous prepossessions. I sought not her intercourse; I rather shunned it, as unpleasing and discreditable, but she would not be repulsed. Self-invited, she made herself my frequent guest; took unsolicited part in my concerns; did me many kind offices; and, at length, in spite of my counter-inclination, won upon my sympathy and gratitude.
"No one in the world, did I fondly think, had I less reason to fear than Mrs. Waring. Her character excited not the slightest apprehension for my own safety. She was upwards of forty, nowise remarkable for grace or beauty; tawdry in her dress; accustomed to render more conspicuous the traces of age by her attempts to hide them; the mother of a numerous family, with a mind but slenderly cultivated; always careful to save appearances; studiously preserving distance with my husband, and he, like myself, enduring rather than wishing her society. What could I fear from the arts of such a one?