As we were sitting at supper, after Dr. Barlow had left us, Lady Belfield, turning to me, said, "She had had a governess proposed to her from a quarter I should little expect to hear." She then produced a letter, informing her that Mr. Fentham was lately found dead in his bed of an apoplexy. That he had died insolvent; and his large income ceasing with his life, his family were plunged into the utmost distress. That Mrs. Fentham experienced the most mortifying neglect 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, except their skill in hair-dressing.'"