Chamberss Edinburgh Journal, No. 424 | Page 5

looked into her face: it was a strange
face, which had once been beautiful; but ill-health, and care, and grief,
had marked it now with deep lines, and coloured it with unnatural tints.
Tears had washed out the roses from her cheeks, and set large purple
rings about her eyes; the mouth was hard and pinched, but the eyelids
swollen; while the crossed wrinkles on her brow told the same tale of
grief grown petulant, and of pain grown soured, as the thin lip,
quivering and querulous, and the nervous hand, never still and never
strong.
The train-bell rang, the whistle sounded, the lady's servitors stood
bareheaded and courtesying to the ground, and the rapid rush of the
iron giant bore off the high-born dame and the starveling painter in
strange companionship. Unquiet and unresting--now shifting her
place--now letting down the glass for the cold air to blow full upon her
withered face--then drawing it up, and chafing her hands and feet by
the warm-water apparatus concealed in her _chauffe-pied_, while
shivering as if in an ague-fit--sighing deeply--lost in thought--wildly
looking out and around for distraction--she soon made me ask myself
whether my envy of her was as true as deep sympathy and pity would
have been.
'But her wealth--her wealth!' I thought. 'True she may suffer, but how
gloriously she is solaced! She may weep, but the angels of social life
wipe off her tears with perfumed linen, gold embroidered; she may
grieve, but her grief makes her joys so much the more blissful. Ah! she

is to be envied after all!--envied, while I, a very beggar, might well
scorn my place now!'
Something of this might have been in my face, as I offered my sick
companion some small attention--I forget what--gathering up one of her
luxurious trifles, or arranging her cushions. She seemed almost to read
my thoughts as her eyes rested on my melancholy face; and saying
abruptly: 'I fear you are unhappy, young man?' she settled herself in her
place like a person prepared to listen to a pleasant tale.
'I am unfortunate, madam,' I answered.
'Unfortunate?' she said impatiently. 'What! with youth and health, can
you call yourself unfortunate? When the whole world lies untried
before you, and you still live in the golden atmosphere of hope, can you
pamper yourself with sentimental sorrows? Fie upon you!--fie upon
you! What are your sorrows compared with mine?'
'I am ignorant of yours, madam,' I said respectfully; 'but I know my
own; and, knowing them, I can speak of their weight and bitterness. By
your very position, you cannot undergo the same kind of distress as that
overwhelming me at this moment: you may have evils in your path of
life, but they cannot equal mine.'
'Can anything equal the evils of ruined health and a desolated hearth?'
she cried, still in the same impatient manner. 'Can the worst griefs of
wayward youth equal the bitterness of that cup which you drink at such
a time of life as forbids all hope of after-assuagement? Can the first
disappointment of a strong heart rank with the terrible desolation of a
wrecked old age? You think because you see about me the evidences of
wealth, that I must be happy. Young man, I tell you truly, I would
gladly give up every farthing of my princely fortune, and be reduced to
the extreme of want, to bring back from the grave the dear ones lying
there, or pour into my veins one drop of the bounding blood of health
and energy which used to make life a long play-hour of delight. Once,
no child in the fields, no bird in the sky, was more blessed than I; and
what am I now?--a sickly, lonely old woman, whose nerves are
shattered and whose heart is broken, without hope or happiness on the
earth! Even death has passed me by in forgetfulness and scorn!'
Her voice betrayed the truth of her emotion. Still, with an accent of
bitterness and complaint, rather than of simple sorrow, it was the voice
of one fighting against her fate, more than of one suffering acutely and

in despair: it was petulant rather than melancholy; angry rather than
grieving; shewing that her trials had hardened, not softened her heart.
'Listen to me,' she then said, laying her hand on my arm, 'and perhaps
my history may reconcile you to the childish depression, from what
cause soever it may be, under which you are labouring. You are young
and strong, and can bear any amount of pain as yet: wait until you reach
my age, and then you will know the true meaning of the word despair! I
am rich, as you may see,' she continued, pointing to her
surroundings--'in truth, so rich that I take no account