ect from her numerous
and noble friends, who now, that she could no longer amuse them with
balls, concerts, and suppers, revenged themselves by wondering what she
could ever mean by giving them at all, and declaring what a bore it had
always been to them to go to her parties. They now insisted that people
ought to confine themselves to their own station, and live within their
income, though they themselves had lifted her above her station, and had
led her to exceed her income.

"The poor woman," continued Lady Belfield, "is in extreme distress. Her
magnificently furnished house will go but a very little way toward
satisfying her creditors. That house, whose clamorous knocker used to
keep the neighborhood awake, is already reduced to utter stillness. The
splendid apartments, brilliant with lustres and wax-lights, and crowded
with company, are become a frightful solitude, terrifying to those to
whom solitude has not one consolation or resource to offer. Poor Mrs.
Fentham is more wounded by this total desertion of those whom she so
sumptuously fed, and so obsequiously flattered, than by her actual
wants."

"It is," said Sir John, "a fine exemplification of the friendships of
the world,

"Confederacies in vice, or leagues in pleasure."

"Lady Denham, when applied to," resumed Lady Belfield, "said, that she
was extremely sorry for them; but as she thought extravagance the
greatest of faults, it would look like an encouragement to imprudence if
she did any thing for them. Their extravagance, however, had never been
objected to by her, till the fountain which had supplied it was stopped:
and she had for years made no scruple of winning money almost nightly
from the woman whose distresses she now refused to relieve. Lady Denham
further assigned the misery into which the elopement of her darling
child with Signor Squallini had brought her, as an additional reason for
withholding her kindness from Mrs. Fentham."

"It is a reason," said I, interrupting Lady Belfield, "which, in a
rightly-turned mind, would have had a directly contrary operation. When
domestic calamity overtakes us, is it not the precise moment for holding
out a hand to the wretched? for diminishing the misery abroad, which at
home may be irretrievable?"

"Lady Bab Lawless, to whom Mrs. Fentham applied for assistance, coolly
advised her to send her daughters to service, saying, 'that she knew of
no acquirement they had which would be of any use to them,