She lived as one without an aim,
without a single purpose except to close one day that she might
begin the next.
After a time, she went on to Lucerne. Here the life on the surface
was gayer, and she was roused from her state of lethargy in spite
of herself. Once, from her little balcony in the National, she
saw two of her old acquaintances in the chorus at the Gaiety. They
were wearing many pearls. Another time, she met them in the street.
She was rather quietly dressed. They did not notice her. But the
prosperous Hebraic gentlemen who attended them were not so careless.
One day a card was brought to her rooms. For the next two weeks
she had a true and unavoidable friend in Lucerne. It would appear
that Mrs. Rowe-Martin had not been apprised of the rift in the
Wrandall lute. She had no reason to consider the exclusive Miss
Castleton as anything but the most desirable of companions. Mrs.
Rowe-Martin was not long in finding out (though how she did it,
heaven knows!), that Lord Murgatroyd's grandniece was no longer
the intimate of that impossible person, Sara Gooch. She couldn't
think of Sara without thinking of Gooch.
But at last Mrs. Rowe-Martin departed, much to Hetty's secret
relief, but not before she had increased the girl's burthens by
introducing her into a cold-nosed cosmopolitan set from which there
were but three ways of escape.
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