"Ladies, have you no sympathizing message for Hazlehurst?" inquired Mr. Ellsworth, as he folded a letter he had been writing.
"Oh, certainly; we were sorry to hear the bad news;" and she then turned immediately, and began an animated, laughing conversation with Hubert de Vaux.
'What a difference in character between the brother and sister,' thought Miss Agnes, whose good opinion of Mr. Ellsworth had been raised higher than ever, by the earnest devotion to his friend's interest, which appeared throughout his whole management of the case.
The family at Wyllys-Roof were careful to show, by their friendly attention to the Hubbards, that their respect and regard for them had not suffered at all by the steps Mr. Clapp had taken. Miss Agnes and Elinor visited the cottage as frequently as ever. One morning, shortly after the wedding, Miss Wyllys went to inquire after Mrs. Hubbard, as she was in the habit of doing. She found Mary Hubbard, the youngest daughter, there, and was struck on entering, by the expression of Miss Patsey's face—very different from her usual calm, pleasant aspect.
"Oh, Miss Wyllys!" she exclaimed, in answer to an inquiry of Miss
Agnes's—"I am just going to Longbridge! My poor, kind uncle
Joseph!—but he was always too weak and indulgent to those
girls!"
"What has happened?" asked Miss Wyllys, anxiously.
"Dreadful news, indeed; Mrs. Hilson has disgraced herself!—Her husband has left her and applied for a divorce! But I do not believe it is half as bad as most people think; Julianna has been shamefully imprudent, but I cannot think her guilty!"
{"Her husband has left her…" = this incident seems to reflect the unhappy marriage between Henry Nicholas Cruger (1800-1867) — a close friend of the Cooper family — and the free-wheeling Harriet Douglas (1790-1872). After their 1833 marriage, Harriet Douglas insisted on living her own life — often in Europe; Cruger eventually left her and in 1843 began a lengthy and highly public divorce action based on desertion. The Cooper family strongly disapproved of Harriet Douglas, and she is believed to have been an inspiration for the free-wheeling Mary Monson in James Fenimore Cooper's last novel, "The Ways of the Hour" (1850)}
Miss Wyllys was grieved to hear such a bad account of her old neighbour's daughter.
"Her husband has left her, you say; where is she now?"