ABSTRACT
Since Emily’s residence in Portman-square, although so long a time had elapsed, Mrs. Wilson had not yet paid her a visit. This separation had been occasioned by misfortune, and not by neglect. There are some beings who seem selected by ‘outrageous Fortune,’ not only to receive the full weight of her fatal ‘sling,’ but to be stuck round by her harassing and petty ‘arrows.’ 364 Mrs. Wilson, in issuing one day for this very purpose, either that really she had been so closely confined at her industrious counter, that she was quite a novice in the art of walking the crouded streets, / or that, accustomed to indulge many profound reveries of sorrow, she was rather seen, than that she herself saw, she had hardly cleared the view of her house, when she encountered a porter, who, with the full weight and the broad expansion of a chest of tea, was equally oppressed as blinded, yet unfortunately determined, at the same time, to be rapid in his motions; so that the exertion of sight entirely rested on the passengers, and not on the porter. The latter indeed proceeded rapidly, but securely, for he was in no danger of being reversed; but rushing round the corner of a street where Mrs. Wilson had arrived, at that very nicety of point of turning when the two future contenders are perfectly unperceived by each other – in not half a second of time – the porter rounded, and Mrs. Wilson fell! It proved no trifling fracture, and she had / hitherto been confined to her house. Emily had more than once called on her, had sympathized, and found her more estimable at every interview; yet her father’s suspicions had made an indelible impression on her mind; and prompt as she was at the tender call of friendship, suspicion made her rather tremble than enjoy.
