“I am sorry to hear you are not well, this evening,” she gently said.

“Thank you.  My head aches much”—­which was no false plea.

“I fear you must feel your solitude irksome.  It is dull for you to be here all alone.”

“I am so used to solitude.”

Mrs. Hare sat down, and gazed with sympathy at the young, though somewhat strange-looking woman before her.  She detected the signs of mental suffering on her face.

“You have seen sorrow,” she uttered, bending forward, and speaking with the utmost sweetness.

“Oh, great sorrow!” burst from Lady Isabel, for her wretched fate was very palpable to her mind that evening, and the tone of sympathy rendered it nearly irrepressible.

“My daughter tells me that you have lost your children, and you have lost your fortune and position.  Indeed I feel for you.  I wish I could comfort you!”

This did not decrease her anguish.  She completely lost all self control, and a gush of tears fell from her eyes.

“Don’t pity me!  Don’t pity me dear Mrs. Hare!  Indeed, it only makes endurance harder.  Some of us,” she added, looking up, with a sickly smile, “are born to sorrow.”

“We are all born to it,” cried Mrs. Hare.  “I, in truth, have cause to say so.  Oh, you know not what my position has been—­the terrible weight of grief that I have to bear.  For many years, I can truly say that I have not known one completely happy moment.”

“All do not have to bear this killing sorrow,” said Lady Isabel.

“Rely upon it, sorrow of some nature does sooner or later come to all.  In the brightest apparent lot on earth, dark days must mix.  Not that there is a doubt but that it falls unequally.  Some, as you observe, seem born to it, for it clings to them all their days; others are more favored—­as we reckon favor.  Perhaps this great amount of trouble is no more than is necessary to take us to Heaven.  You know the saying, ‘Adversity hardens the heart, or it opens it to Paradise.’  It may be that our hearts continue so hard, that the long-continued life’s trouble is requisite to soften them.  My dear,” Mrs. Hare added, in a lower tone, while the tears glistened on her pale cheeks, “there will be a blessed rest for the weary, when this toilsome life is ended; let us find comfort in that thought.”

“Ay!  Ay!” murmured Lady Isabel.  “It is all that is left to me.”

“You are young to have acquired so much experience of sorrow.”

“We cannot estimate sorrow by years.  We may live a whole lifetime of it in a single hour.  But we generally bring ill fate upon ourselves,” she continued, in a desperation of remorse; “as our conduct is, so will our happiness or misery be.”