ught; visited from house
to house, without ostentation; was awestricken by that spectacle of the
poverty which we have with us always, of which the sight rebukes
our selfish griefs into silence, the thought compels us to charity,
humility, and devotion. The priests of our various creeds, who elsewhere
are doing battle together continually, lay down their arms in its
presence and kneel before it; subjugated by that overpowering master.
Death, never dying out; hunger always crying; and children born to it
day after day,--our young London lady, flying from the splendours and
follies in which her life had been past, found herself in the presence
of these; threading darkling alleys which swarmed with wretched life;
sitting by naked beds, whither by God's blessing she was sometimes
enabled to carry a little comfort and consolation; or whence she came
heart-stricken by the overpowering misery, or touched by the patient
resignation of the new friends to whom fate had directed her. And here
she met the priest upon his shrift, the homely missionary bearing his
words of consolation, the quiet curate pacing his round; and was known
to all these, and enabled now and again to help their people in trouble.
"Oh! what good there is in this woman!" my wife would say to me, as she
laid one of Miss Ethel's letters aside; "who would have thought this was
the girl of your glaring London ballroom? If she has had grief to bear,
how it has chastened and improved her!"

And now I have to confess that all this time, whilst Ethel Newcome has
been growing in grace with my wife, poor Clive has been lapsing sadly
out of favour. She has no patience with Clive. She drubs her little foot
when his name is mentioned and turns the subject. Whither are all the
tears and pities fled now? Mrs. Laura has transferred all her regard to
Ethel, and when that lady's ex-suitor writes to his old friend, or other
news is had of him, Laura flies out in her usual tirades against the
world, the horrid wicked selfish world, which spoils everybody who comes
near it. What has Clive done, in vain his apologist asks, that an old
friend should be so angry with him?

She is not angry with him--not she. She only does not care about him.
She wishes him no manner of harm--not the least, only she has lost all
interest in him. And the Colonel too, the poor good old Colonel, was
actually in Mrs. Pendennis' black books, and when he sent her the
Brussels veil which we have heard of, s