"
"There is no sacrifice in the case, I assure you, my dear," returned
Mrs. Downe Wright. "This is a most comfortable room; and I could go
nowhere that I would meet a pleasanter little circle," looking round.
Lady Matilda thought herself undone. Looking well--fat--comfortable
room--pleasant circle--rung in her ears, and caused almost as great a
whirl in her brain as noses, lips, handkerchiefs, did in Othello's Mrs.
Downe Wright, always disagreeable, was now perfectly insupportable. She
had disconcerted all her plans--she was a bar to all her studied
speeches--even an obstacle to all her sentimental looks; yet to get rid
of her was impossible. In fact, Mrs. Downe Wright was far from being an
amiable woman. She took a malicious pleasure in tormenting those she did
not like; and her skill in this art was so great that she even deprived
the tormented of the privilege of complaint. She had a great insight
into character, and she might be said to read the very thoughts of his
victims. Making a desperate effort to be herself again, Lady Matilda
turned to her two young visitors, with whom she had still some hopes of
success.
"I cannot express how much I feel indebted to the sympathy of my friends
upon this trying occasion--an occasion, indeed, that called for
sympathy."
"A most melancholy occasion!" said the Duke.
"A most distressing occasion!" exclaimed the General.
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