on the bed when she was gone, and wished myself back in Varick-street;
and then cried, to think that I should be homesick for such a dreary
home. But the appetites and affections common to humanity had not been
left out of my heart, though I had been beggared all my life in regard
to most of them. I could have loved a mother so--a sister--I could have
had such happy feelings for a place that I could have felt was home.
What matter, if I could not even remember the smile on my mother's lips;
what matter, if no brother or sister had ever been born to me; if no
house had ever been my rightful home? I was hungry for them all the
same. And these first glimpses of the happy lives of others seemed to
disaffect me more than ever with my own.
CHAPTER IV.
MY COMPANIONS.
"Vous etes belle: ainsi donc la moitie
Du genre humain sera votre ennemie."
_Voltaire_.
"Oh, I think the cause
Of much was, they forgot no crowd
Makes up for parents in their shroud."
_R. Browning_.
The servant came to call me down to tea while I was still sitting with
my face in my hands upon the bed. I started up, lit the candles on the
dressing-table, arranged my hair, washed the tears off my face, and
hurried down the stairs. They were waiting for me in the parlor, and no
doubt were quite impatient, as they had already waited for the arrival
of the evening train, and it was nearly eight o'clock. The evening train
had brought Mr. Eugene Whitney, of whom I can only say, that he was a
very insignificant young man indeed. We all moved into the dining-room;
the others took the seats they were accustomed to. Mr. Whitney and I,
being the only new-comers, were advised which seats belonged to us by a
trim young maid-servant, and I, for one, was very glad to get into mine.
Mr. Whitney was my neighbor on one hand, the youngest of the Hollenbeck
boys on the other. These were our seats:
Kilian,
Miss Leighton, Miss Henrietta Palmer,
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