stood the old man, worn and wasted—Helen almost fancied she could see the pale, yet tranquil face.
The silence was broken by Mrs. Palmer's saying:
"But I did not send for you to make you all dull. God knows I sometimes wonder how we live over our bitterest sorrows! and yet we ought to be thankful, for little avail is it to grieve over the past. I had a very handsome monument placed in Clapham Church, but I would not have 'by his disconsolate widow’ put upon it. I was not disconsolate; I trusted in the goodness of God, and I knew the good and kind old man was only gone before me to another and a better world."
"How much," said Helen, anxious in her turn to divert the mind of their hostess, "I should have liked to have been at school with you!"
"Ah, my dear," exclaimed Mrs. Palmer, brightening up at the idea of past power, "we should have done each other credit. I can assure you there are girls of mine at every court in Europe; I gave into none of the present idle fashions. It would have done you good to have seen how upright they sat, with their feet in the first position on a Sunday afternoon, when they drank tea with me. Then such a curtsey as every girl made when she came into the parlour, down to the very ground, and as steady as if they had had no joints. Poor dears, I liked to see them enjoy the seed-cake afterwards. I have always kept the receipt, there is some of it in the plate, Georgiana, by you."
