At length matters came to a head and the clergyman of the parish
cross-questioned the poor woman so closely that with many tears and
a bitter sense of degradation she confessed the truth; she and her
children went into the hedges and gathered snails, which they made
into broth and ate- could she ever be forgiven? Was there any hope
of salvation for her either in this world or the next after such
unnatural conduct?
So again I have heard of an old dowager countess whose money was all
in Consols; she had had many sons, and in her anxiety to give the
younger ones a good start, wanted a larger income than Consols would
give her. She consulted her solicitor and was advised to sell her
Consols and invest in the London and North Western Railway, then at
about 85. This was to her what eating snails was to the poor widow
whose story I have told above. With shame and grief, as of one doing
an unclean thing- but her boys must have their start- she did as she
was advised. Then for a long while she could not sleep at night and
was haunted by a presage of disaster. Yet what happened? She started
her boys, and in a few years found her capital doubled into the
bargain, on which she sold out and went back again to Consols and died
in the full blessedness of fund-holding.
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