Turns of Fortune, and Other Tales Part 12

Her uncle shuddered, while the young girl sobbed in the bitter wailing tone their landlady complained of.

"No," resumed Mary, "let the parish bury her; even its officers were kind; and if you bury her, or they, it is still a pauper's funeral. I see all these things clearly now; death, while it closes the eyes of some, opens the eyes of others; it has opened mine."

But why should I prolong this sad story. It is not the tale of one, but of many. There are dozens, scores, hundreds of instances of the same kind, _arising from the same cause_, in our broad islands. In the lunatic asylum, where that poor girl, even Mary Adams, has found refuge during the past two years, there are many cases of insanity arising from change of circ.u.mstances, where a fifty pounds' insurance would have set such maddening distress at defiance. I know that her brother died in the hospital within a few days; and the pale, sunken-eyed girl, whose damp yellow hair and thin white hand are so eagerly kissed by the gentle maniac when she visits her, month by month, is the youngest, and, I believe, the _last_ of her family, at least the last in England. Oh, that those who foolishly boast that their actions only affect themselves, would look carefully abroad, and if they doubt what I have faithfully told, examine into the causes which crowd the world with cases even worse than I have here recorded!