Among
themselves, at the clubs or elsewhere, the men speculated more or less
coarsely and unfeelingly upon the foundations of the numerous scandals
which had from time to time blossomed like brilliant and life-sapping
parasites upon the tree of Mrs. Sampson's reputation. Her name, either
spoken boldly or too broadly hinted at to be misunderstood, adorned
many a racy tale told in smoking-rooms after good dinners, or when the
hours had grown small in more senses than one; and her career was made
to point more than one moral drawn for the benefit of the sisters and
daughters of the men who joked and sneered concerning her.
Mrs. Amanda Welsh Sampson was born of a good old Boston family, to
which she clung with a desperate clutch which her relatives ignored so
far as with dignity they were able. Her father had been a lawyer of
reputation, and his portrait was still displayed prominently in the
daughter's parlor, a circumstance which had given Chauncy Wilson
opportunity for a jest rather clever than elegant concerning Judge
Welsh's well-known fondness in life for watching the progress of
criminal cases. Of her husband, the late Mr. Sampson, there was very
little said, and not much was known beyond the fact that having run
away from school to marry him, Amanda had shared a shady and it was
whispered rather disreputable existence for three years, at the end of
which she was fortunately relieved from the matrimonial net by his
timely decease; an event of which she sometimes spoke to her more
intimate male friends with undisguised satisfaction.
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