At Mrs.Meldrum's door she turned off with the observation that as there was certainly a great deal I should have to say to our friend she had better not go in with me.
I looked at her again--I had been keeping my eyes away from her--but only to meet her magnified stare.

I greatly desired in truth to see Mrs.
Meldrum alone, but there was something so grim in the girl's trouble that I hesitated to fall in with this idea of dropping her.

Yet one couldn't express a compassion without seeming to take for granted more trouble than there actually might have been.

I reflected that I must really figure to her as a fool, which was an entertainment I had never expected to give her.

It rolled over me there for the first time--it has come back to me since--that there is, wondrously, in very deep and even in very foolish misfortune a dignity still finer than in the most inveterate habit of being all right.