I may forget Fanny’s shocking view of fashionable human nature. She is a perfect old Diogenes, and deserves no better than a tub! Play, Eda, that ‘music for a time may change _her_ nature.’” “Nay, sing, sister,” said Fanny; “’twill soothe his troubled spirit sooner. Sing something from Lucia di Lammermoor, and I will promise not to repeat my offence.” But Mrs. Hill was right. She did not presume to deny the title of every one in our own free country to the equality it claims. She would exclude none from the advantages of society, let their pedigree be what it might. She respected honesty, and venerated truth. She knew that wealth could not confer either, and was too often acquired in their absence; to her it covered no faults, mended no reputation, refined no coarseness of mind, and looking upon it as affording opportunities of relieving misery, ways of making others happy, of giving to genius the advantages of education and learning, it was no wonder that she sighed, as she witnessed its daily influence on the minds and hearts of those with whom she mingled. There was no bitterness in her contemplation of its consequences, for she was too good and gentle to be envious, too pious to repine. She had been in the sunshine of the great world’s favor, and was now beginning to see its clouds, as her means of affording mere entertainment to its votaries began to decline. But, although she felt privations, the want of comforts to which she had ever been accustomed; although she felt that wealth can bestow much happiness on those who know its proper use, she murmured not, nor thought more of those on whom fortune was conferring her choicest favors. No wonder, then, that she could foresee the success of Mrs. Jones, when with _her_ accomplishments and fine, noble mind, the diminution of prosperity brought her less consideration. The mortification to her was, not the loss of fortune, but the mistake she made in fancying that her real worth had been appreciated. She knew that true hearts could not forsake her, that true friends could not be changed, and the rest passed from her mind as a dream that had lasted too long. Winter approached, and after giving dinners, suppers, and picknicks innumerable in honor of her new acquaintance, Mrs. Jones prepared to remove into her house in town. At the same time Mrs. Macfuss was ready to do the like, and as mortified as the former felt at her palpable neglect, it was a comfort to know that their furniture-wagons went side by side for six good miles. And so ended Mrs. Jones’s first year of climbing. The ladder seemed not so steep, nor the ascent so difficult; she could look up and smile on those at the top, while hands were held out to help her as she mounted.