Mr. and Mrs. Clive Newcome

The friendship between Ethel and Laura, which the last narrated¹ sentimental² occurrences had so much increased, subsists³ very little impaired⁴ up to the present day. A lady with many domestic interests and increasing family, etc. etc., cannot be supposed to cultivate female intimacies⁵ out of doors with that ardour and eagerness which young spinsters exhibit in their intercourse⁶; but Laura, whose kind heart first led her to sympathise with her young friend in the latter’s days of distress⁷ and misfortune, has professed⁸ ever since a growing esteem⁹ for Ethel Newcome, and says, that the trials and perhaps grief which the young lady now had to undergo have brought out the noblest qualities of her disposition¹⁰. She is a very different person from the giddy and worldly girl who compelled our admiration¹¹ of late in the days of her triumphant¹² youthful beauty, of her wayward generous humour, of her frivolities and her flirtations.

Did Ethel shed tears in secret over the marriage which had caused Laura’s gentle eyes to overflow¹³? We might divine the girl’s grief, but we respected it. The subject was never mentioned by the ladies between themselves, and even in her most intimate communications with her husband that gentleman is bound to say his wife maintained a tender reserve upon the point, nor cared to speculate upon a subject which her friend held sacred. I could not for my part but

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