“Are you not sorry for the Allens?” inquired one of her set. “It is said they have lost the greater part of their fortune in this company that has just failed.”
The lady thus addressed was one who prided herself on her frankness, and she answered, with a spirit and promptness that caused the other to laugh,
“No, I can’t say I am. Mrs. Allen has hitherto thought that every body else’s misfortunes were their faults. Let her now bring the matter home.”
The other seemed to enjoy the remark, although hardly daring to say as much herself, and she only replied, with an affectation of amiability that her gratified looks denied—
“But it is a hard lesson to learn.”
“My dear Mrs. Binney,” replied her friend, “we have all of us hard lessons to learn in our experience through life. But I have no sympathy for those who need them before they can feel for others.”
“She certainly has been rather hard upon those who fell into misfortune,” gently resumed Mrs. Binney.
“Rather hard!” ejaculated the other—“I never shall forget when my brother failed—” and then came a stored up host of bitter remembrances and old offences against Mrs. Allen, speeches long forgotten, that had rankled deep, to rise up in judgment when her turn came to call for public sympathy and general discussion.
Mr. Allen seemed to escape without either sympathy or animadversion. If alluded to, he was called “a poor, weak fool,” by the men, and “oh, he is nobody,” was all the consideration deigned him by the women. But Mrs. Allen was canvassed and talked over according to the feelings of the speakers, as if she were both master and mistress of the establishment. Mrs. Ludlow, her early friend, was still her friend, and sympathized, from the bottom of her heart, in all her trials.
Prosperity often seems to mark certain families for its own for years—but when the tide changes, misfortune frequently clings as obstinately to those who have hitherto seemed the favorites of fortune. To most of us, life is as an April day, checkered by clouds and sunshine; but there are others whose brilliant morning and calm noonday suddenly darken into clouds and storm. A certain portion of sorrow is the lot of all, whether it comes drifting through life, or is compassed within any particular period of existence. Come, however, it must to all.