to say mitigating, suggestions.

It was well, she thought, that Agatha and Florence were with her.
They had been spared so much; and perhaps if all this had happened
first, they might never have come. As to their return, she thought
it would be a pity; "it could not make it really any better for
you," she said; "and while your plans are unsettled, the fewer you
are, the more easily you will manage. It seems hard to shadow their
young lives more than is inevitable; and new scenes and interests
are the very best things for them; their year of mourning would be
fairly blotted out at home, you know. For yourself, poor friend, of
course you cannot care; and Desire and Helena are not much come
forward, but it would be a dead blank and stop to them, so much
lost, right out; and I feel as if it were a kind Providence for the
dear girls that they should be just where they are. We are living
quietly, inexpensively; it will cost no more to come home at one
time than at another;" etc.

There are persons to whom the pastime of life is the whole business
of it; sickness and death and misfortune,--to say nothing of cares
and duties--are the interruptions, to be got rid of as they may.

The next week came more letters; they had got a new idea out there.
Why should not Mrs. Ledwith and the others come and join them? They
were in Munich, now; the schools were splendid; would be just the
thing for Helena; and "it was time for mamma to have a rest."

This thought, among the dozen others, had had its turn in Mrs.
Ledwith's head. To break away, and leave everything, that is the
impulse of natures like hers when things go hard and they cannot