Page:The Confessions of a Well-Meaning Woman.djvu/191

Confessions of a Well-Meaning Woman enthusiasm—and with us, I am afraid, of worldly circumstance. Inevitable. . . For oneself, perhaps, one does not mind it, but it is sometimes heart-rending to see the boys and girls setting out with those high hopes that we have been compelled, one by one, to discard; heart-rending, too, when those who seemed to walk with their heads on a level with the stars trip and sprawl like the rest. ..

No, I assure you I was not thinking of any one in particular. The feeling returns with the season and is quite general. One could find particular applications, no doubt, very near at hand. Begin where you will: my brother-in-law Spenworth. . . I wonder what we shall be thinking of him in a year’s time; divorced, remarried—and nobody one penny the worse! I am not ashamed to confess that, when the word “divorce” is mentioned, I am translated to another sphere. . . Groping blindly among things I don’t understand and don’t want to understand. . . Say what you will, we were not so lax a generation ago; those who fell remained where they fell. . . or climbed back with effort, difficulty and an acknowledgement of wrong-doing. Not as of right. . . The new Lady Spenworth I hardly know; she who marries a man that has been put away. . . I have not refused to meet her, but the opportunity has 179