Her conversation was almost always within the range of New York
fashionable themes; and barren of any food upon which the mind could
grow. There was not even the pretence of affection between her and
her husband. The fairest specimen of well bred indifference I had
yet seen was exhibited in their conduct to each other. Their babe
did not seem to be a matter of much account either. Delia took no
personal care of it whatever--leaving all this to the nurse.
It happened one day that I was called in to see the child. I found
it suffering from some of the ill effects of difficult dentition,
and did what the case required. There was an old friend of Delia's
at the house--a young lady who had been much attached to her, and
who still retained a degree of her old friendship. They were talking
together in a pleasant, familiar way, when I came down stairs from
my visit to the sick child--the mother had not shown sufficient
interest in the little sufferer to attend me to the nurse's room. A
word or two of almost careless inquiry was made;--I had scarcely
answered the mother's queries, when her friend said, in a laughing
way, looking from the window at the same time,
"There, Delia! see what you escaped.
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