Read "Lodore" by Mary Shelley online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
It is the same, for be it joy or sorrow. The path of its departure still is free; Man's yesterday can ne'er be like his morrow. Nor aught endure save mutability. --Shelley.
The month of June had commenced. In spite of lawyer's delays and the difficulties attendant on all such negociations, they were at last concluded, and nothing remained but for Lady Lodore to sign the paper which was to consign her to comparative destitution. In all changes we feel most keenly the operation of small circumstances, and are chiefly depressed by the necessity of stooping to the direction of petty arrangements, and having to deal with subordinate persons. To complete her design, Lady Lodore had to make many arrangements, trivial yet imperative, which called for her attention, when she was least fitted to give it. She had met these demands on her patience without shrinking; and all was prepared for the finishing stroke about to be put to her plans. She dismissed those servants whom she did not intend to leave in the house for Ethel's use. She contrived to hasten the intended marriage of her own maid, so to disburthen herself wholly.