"Is there any thing, Miss Cartwright, that I can offer for your amusement? The books of the day are chiefly in our dressing-rooms, I believe--and I have abundance of new music--and in this room I can show you where to find a very splendid collection of engravings." "I wish for nothing of the kind, I am much obliged to you." "Shall I send Fanny to you? Perhaps, notwithstanding the ocean of tears you have seen her shed, she would prove a much more cheerful companion than I could do at this moment." "I do not wish for a cheerful companion," said Henrietta. "Is there any thing, then, that I can do," resumed Rosalind, half smiling, "that may assist you in getting rid of the morning?" "You may sit with me yourself." "May I?--Well, then, so I will. I assure you that I only thought of going because it appeared to me that you did not particularly desire my company." "To say the truth, Miss Torrington, I do not think there is any thing on earth particularly worth desiring; but your conversation may perhaps be amongst the most endurable. Besides, it is agreeable to look at you." "You are very civil," replied Rosalind, laughing. "Perhaps you would like me to hold a nosegay in my hand, or to put on a bonnet and feathers, that I might be still better worth looking at." "No.--If I had a bunch of flowers before my eyes, I should not want you: no woman can be so beautiful as a collection of flowers. But I shall do very well, I dare say. Nothing, you know, lasts very long." "Your father, then, I presume, has taught your thoughts, Miss Cartwright, to fix themselves altogether on a future and a better world." "As to a future world, Miss Torrington, I must have better authority than Mr. Cartwright's before I pretend to know any thing about it." "But I hope your distaste for that which we enjoy at present does not arise from its having been unkind to you?" "When I was a child," answered Henrietta, "I had a kind of sickly longing for kindness; but now, that I am older and wiser, I cannot say that I think kindness or unkindness are matters of much consequence." "That, indeed, is a feeling that must put one speedily either above or below sorrow." "I am below it." "It would be just as easy to say, above, Miss Cartwright; and if you really have reached to a state of such stoical indifference, I rather wonder you should not feel that it sets you above all the poor sensitive souls whom you must see longing for a smile, and trembling at a frown." "Because, Miss Torrington, I have constantly felt that in approaching this state of mind I have been gradually sinking lower and lower in my own estimation: I am become so hatefully familiar with sin and wickedness, that I perfectly loathe myself--though assuredly it has ended by giving me a very pre-eminent degree of indifference concerning all that may hereafter happen to me." "Is it in your own person," said Rosalind jestingly, "that you have become thus familiar with sin?" "No. It is in that of my father."