'We scream when we're born,
We groan when we're dying;
And all that's between
Is but laughing and crying.'"

A parade of philosophy all this which at another time might have had but
a small effect upon a youthful mind, but Rachel was in the meantime
occupied by looking at the inscription on the fatal toy; and we all know
that the feeling of the dominant idea of the moment assimilates to its
own hue the light or shade of all other ideas of a cognate kind; and
there is in this process also a selection and rejection whereby all
melancholy ideas cluster in the gloomy atmosphere, if we may so term it,
of the prevailing depression, and all joyful ones come together by the
attraction of a joyful thought; and so Rachel was impressed by views
which, if they had been modified by the comforting doctrines of
Christianity, might have enabled her at once to bear and to hope. Even
when Paul had finished, she was still gazing on the locket. A moment or
two more, and she laid it down with a deep sigh, saying, almost
involuntarily, "If my name had been there, I would not have repined at
the loss of all my expected fortune." Then, shaking hands with this
peculiar being, whom she could not but respect for his ingenuity, as
well as for a kindliness and sympathy which lay at the bottom of all his
abstract theories, she left him to his work, at which he would continue
till drowsiness made, as he said, the idea dim and the nerve thick.

Retracing her steps down the long dark stair, not a very efficient
medium for the removal of impressions so unlike the results of our
natural consciousness, Rachel Grierson found herself again among the
bustling crowds of the High Street. Nor could she view these busy people