Any other test of friendship but this! How
could I live under one roof with uncongenial souls like Bayard de
Beaumont? How did I know whether they would welcome me now, when I was
homeless, and in a sense dependent?
I thought of the dear, distant Abbey, where I had passed the happiest
days of my not over-happy life--but it was now some years since I had
left its safe seclusion, and those who had known me and cared for me,
were likely scattered and gone.
I would be greeted with that reserved kindness which good stranger
hearts extend to any homeless waif--and that, would be worse than all!
I thought of my fashionable companions, who had pampered me, and
courted me, in my palmy days. How different they all appeared to me
now, when I was in need of their kindness and favour! Alice Merivale
was away, pleasuring in England, the Hartmanns! the Hunters! the
Pendletons! what a cold shoulder they would turn to me, any of them,
did I seek their shelter in comparative poverty!
And even if they welcomed me, and ministered to my every want, could I
rest quietly beneath their roofs? Could I subdue my rebellious pride
and accept their patronage humbly and gratefully "Ah no," said I,
rising up, with a deep-drawn sigh, "I must think of some other plan,
none of these would ever do?"
While I was yet standing in deliberation by the window, the door
opened softly, and my step-mother glided in. I turned, and looked at
her for a moment, as she advanced towards me and then directed my gaze
back again in silence to the street below.
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