Page:Traits and Trials.pdf/223

Rh must have left something, for us. It is very cruel of those odious creditors:" all sorrow for her husband's memory was swallowed up in reproach. Fanny used every effort to console, and when she could not soothe, at least she listened patiently.

Mrs. Beaumont's jewels were of course taken, but Fanny's manner had so much interested one of the creditors, who had a daughter about her age, that he exerted himself in the cause of the bereaved family.

They were allowed to retain their personal effects—and these he also aided Fanny to dispose of, for she saw at once their uselessness in what was likely to be their future situation. Her mother would exhaust herself in useless complaints, find fault with every inevitable arrangement, and end by leaving the almost broken hearted girl to manage as she could. At last, her discontent took the form of an earnest longing to leave London: it was the best possible shape it could have taken, for had the proposal