"I walked on," she continued, "until my feet and hands were numb with cold. The north-east wind pierced its bitterness through my bared breast; I pulled the shawl tighter around me, clutching as I did so, a circlet of diamonds, that would have purchased all the comforts in the land for me, and yet I was alone and freezing. He was comfortable and warm, whose cruelty had driven me into the street, and yet I was his own flesh and blood. He could listen to the wailing of the winter wind, and know that it was the pitiful cry of his child--his daughter, and yet remain unmoved. It was then I missed the tender solicitude of a mother, and I looked up into the cold silence of the stars, seeking in their still, watchful expression, some stimulus, for I thought I must go mad, or lie down to die on the earth's frozen bosom. I did not rashly censure anyone for my misfortune, but that night the coldness and cruelty of life, as it unravelled itself to me, blighted every womanly sentiment within my heart. From that moment dates the cynicism that marked my after life. My old self died out, and the flickering flame that started afresh into existence, was no longer the quiet subdued one of older days I had passed from a gay happy girl, into a hardened reckless woman, and I have never regretted it. "Cold, and miserable, and friendless, I went in search of a refuge, to an old nurse of mine, who lived at a short distance from the spot to which I had wandered. I reached the house and looked in the narrow window. A greasy looking candle burned on the rough table, casting flickering shadows around the low ceiling and walls, over the pewter dishes and shining delf. It was a kind of comfort to my poor heart, when I saw old Nanny herself, seated on a rocking chair before the fire. I can never forget the expression of genuine horror that covered the old creature's face, as she saw me at the door of her little cottage, shivering in my ball dress. "'Is it Miss Jean?' she said, with both hands up in consternation, 'sure I declare its more like the ghost of our dead sweet mother comin' to me this blessed night, as I just sat thinkin of her.'