Try not to look so much on the dark side of things.

How would you be," she added, with a good-humoured laugh, "if you had to work all day, like me?
I'm sure you've a great deal to make you feel happy and thankful." "I don't know what," returned Harriet coldly.
"But your husband, your home, your long, free days ?" The other laughed peevishly.

Ida turned her head away for a moment; she was irritated by this wretched humour, and, as had often been the case of late, found it difficult to restrain some rather trenchant remark.
"It may sound strange," she said, with a smile, "but I think I should be very willing to endure bad health for a position something like yours." Harriet laughed again, and still more unpleasantly.
Later in the evening Harriet went to call upon her friend Mrs.Sprowl.
Something of an amusing kind seemed to be going forward in front of the house.

On drawing near and pressing into the crowd of loitering people, she beheld a spectacle familiar to her, and one which brought a smile to her face.

A man of wretched appearance, in vile semblance of clothing which barely clung together about him, was standing on his head upon the pavement, and, in that attitude, drawling out what was meant for a song, while those around made merry and indulged in practical jokes at his expense.