"
The commissary was now bustling about, hurrying the preparations for
breakfast, and L'Isle went to see if the servants were getting ready
for the journey; but Mrs. Shortridge, full of the annoyances she had
suffered, continued to denounce their small enemies. Her talk was of
vermin.
Lady Mabel, thinking the subject had been sufficiently discussed,
interrupted her, saying, "you do not take the most philosophical and
poetical view of the subject. Is it not consolatory to reflect, that
while men, on suffering a reverse of fortune, too often experience
nothing but ingratitude and desertion from their fellows, and sadly
learn that
"'Tis ever thus: Those shadows we call friends,
Attend us through the sunshine of success,
To vanish in adversity's dark hour."
"Yet there are followers that adhere to them in their fallen fortunes
with more than canine fidelity, sticking to them like their sins,
clinging to their persons, cleaving to their garments, with an
attachment and in numbers that grow with their patron's destitution."
"But I maintain," Mrs. Shortridge replied, "that it is not only the
poor and destitute that here support such a retinue.
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