She, on her part, filled up, well or ill, the void which the absence of her usual circle left in her amusements.

This for her was but a very slender supplement, although preferable to absolute solitude, which she could not support.

She had the means of doing it much more at her ease after she began with literature, and at all events to write novels, letters, comedies, tales, and other trash of the same kind.

But she was not so much amused in writing these as in reading them; and she never scribbled over two or three pages--at one sitting--without being previously assured of having, at least, two or three benevolent auditors at the end of so much labor.

I seldom had the honor of being one of the chosen few except by means of another.