a had simpered and
shook her curls affectedly, the new-comer proceeded to give the latest
version of the Graystone's downfall and subsequent misfortunes.

"All gone by the board, a regular crash, and nothing left to tell the
tale."

"A clear, out and out failure."

"And all come from signing for that rascally Sanderson."

"I knew he was a slippery rogue."

"Good enough for Graystone."

"Served him right for being such a fool."

These, and similar uncomplimentary epithets, indiscriminately applied by
the assembled ladies, proved what a choice morsel this was considered
that had so unexpectedly fallen to their share.

"What will become of the family, I wonder?" queried Mrs. Crane. "It was
bad enough to lose the money, but now that Graystone's gone, I do not
see what them two helpless women are going to do?"

"Live on their connections, most likely," snapped little Mrs. Brown, "of
course they won't _work_."

"No, I do not believe that," was the reply. "They are too independent.
At present, I believe, they have taken rooms in an obscure part of the
city. I guess they do not know what to do themselves."

"It must have been hard to part with everything that was dear to them by
association, for I hear that they gave up everything, even Clemence's
piano, to pay debts."

There was a pitying tone in the speaker's voice. Alicia Linden, for all
her tragic accents, her deep-set eyes, with their beetling brows, and
her generally almost repulsive exterior, had more real heart than any of
the women present. Perhaps she remembered that time in the vanished
past, when she had stood by the coffin that contained the loved of her
youth, he who had made her girlhood one dream of happiness, but over
whose calm face the grass had greened and faded for many a weary year;
perhaps this remembrance touched a chord of her better nature. Life,
with its cares, and sorrows, and disappointments, had hardened her, till
she had almost lost faith in humanity. Moreover, she was a woman,
homely, and old and common, and with feminine malice and spite she could
not readily forgive another of her own sex for being beautiful, refined
and attractive. She said emphatically, that "it was well that, in this
world, pride could sometimes be humbled;" but for all that, the memory
of that day so long ago, passed alone in her desolation and sorrowful
widowhood, lent a pitying sadness to her voice that placed her
infinitely above these other soulless ones