"My bonnet is not so very much better," said Myra, rather sulkily.
"Not so very much, alas! but better, far better than mine. And, besides, confess, please, my dear, that you had the last bonnet. Two years ago, it's true; but mine had seen three; and then, remember, I am going into grand company again to-morrow, and must be decent."
This last remark did not sweeten Myra's temper.
"Oh! I forgot. Of course you'll keep your good company to yourself. I am, indeed, not fit to be seen in it. But you'll want a new gown and a new shawl, my dear, though, indeed, you can always take mine, as you did this morning."
"Now, Myra!" said Lettice, "can you really be so naughty? Nay, you are cross; I see it in your face, though you won't look at me. Now don't be so foolish. Is it not all the same to us both? Are we not in one box? If you wish for the new bonnet, take it, and I'll take yours: I don't care, my dear. You were always used to be more handsomely dressed than me—it must seem quite odd for you not to be so. I only want to be decent when I go about the work, which I shall have to do often, as I told you, because I dare not have two of these expensive handkerchiefs in my possession at once. Dear me, girl! Have we not troubles enough? For goodness' sake don't let us make them. There, dear, take the bonnet, and I'll take yours; but I declare, when I look at the two, this is so horridly coarse, yours, old as it is looks the genteeler to my mind," laughing.
So thought Myra, and kept her own bonnet, Lettice putting upon it the piece of new ribbon she had bought, and after smoothing and rubbing the faded one upon her sister's, trimming with it her own.
The two friends in Green-street sat silently for a short time after the door had closed upon Lettice; and then Catherine began.
"More astonishing things happen in the real world than one ever finds in a book. I am sure if such a reverse of fortune as this had been described to me in a story, I should at once have declared it to be impossible. I could not have believed it credible that, in a society such as ours—full of all sorts of kind, good-natured people, who are daily doing so much for the poor—an amiable girl like this, the daughter of a clergyman of the Church of England, could be suffered to sink into such abject poverty."
"Ah! my dear Catherine, that shows you have only seen life upon one side, and that its fairest side—as it presents itself in the country. You can not imagine what a dreadful thing it may prove in large cities. It can not enter into the head of man to conceive the horrible contrasts of large cities—the dreadful destitution of large cities—the awful solitude of a crowd. In the country, I think, such a thing hardly could have happened, however great the difficulty is of helping those who still preserve the delicacy and dignity with regard to money matters, which distinguishes finer minds—but in London what can be done? Like lead in the mighty waters, the moneyless and friendless sink to the bottom, Society in all its countless degrees closes over them: they are lost in its immensity, hidden from every eye, and they perish as an insect might perish; amid the myriads of its kind, unheeded by every other living creature. Ah, my love! if your walks lay where mine have done, your heart would bleed for these destitute women, born to better hopes, and utterly shipwrecked."