Mrs. Lennox kindly pressed her hand.  “Ah!  God hath, indeed, sent some into the world, whose province it is to refresh the afflicted, and lighten the eyes of the disconsolate.  Such, I am sure, you would be to me; for I feel my heart revive at the sound of your voice; it reminds me of my heart’s darling, my Louisa! and the remembrance of her, though sad, is still sweet.  Come to me, then, when you will, and God’s blessing, and the blessing of the blind and desolate, will reward you.”

Lady Emily turned away, and it was not till they had been some time in the carriage that Mary was able to express the interest this visit had excited, and her anxious desire to be permitted to renew it.

“It is really an extraordinary kind of delight, Mary, that you take in being made miserable,” said her cousin, wiping her eyes; “for my part, it makes me quite wretched to witness suffering that I can’t relieve; and how can you or I possibly do poor Mrs. Lennox any good?  We can’t bring back her sons.”

“No; but we can bestow our sympathy, and that, I have been taught, is always a consolation to the afflicted.”

“I don’t quite understand the nature of that mysterious feeling called sympathy.  When I go to visit Mrs. Lennox, she always sets me a-crying, and I try to set her a-laughing.  Is that what you call sympathy?”

Mary smiled, and shook her head.

“Then I suppose it is sympathy to blow one’s nose—­and—­and read the Bible.  Is that it? or what is it?”

Mary declared she could not define it; and Lady Emily insisted she could not comprehend it.

“You will some day or other,” said Mary; “for none, I believe, have ever passed through life without feeling, or at least requiring its support; and it is well, perhaps, that we should know betimes how to receive as well as how to bestow it.”

“I don’t see the necessity at all.  I know I should hate mortally to be what you call sympathised with; indeed, it appears to me the height of selfishness in anybody to like it.  If I am wretched, it would be no comfort to me to make everybody else wretched; and were I in Mrs. Lennox’s place, I would have more spirit than to speak about my misfortunes.”

“But Mrs. Lennox does not appear to be what you call a spirited creature.  She seems all sweetness, and—­”

“Oh, sweet enough, certainly!—­But hers is a sort of Eolian harp, that lulls me to sleep.  I tire to death of people who have only two or three notes in their character.  By-the-bye, Mary, you have a tolerable compass yourself, when you choose, though I don’t think you have science enough for a bravura; there I certainly have the advantage of you, as I flatter myself my mind is a full band in itself.  My kettledrums and trumpets I keep for Lady Juliana, and I am quite in the humour for giving her a flourish today.  I really require something of an exhilarating nature after Mrs. Lennox’s dead march.”