awaiting in London the sale of her
house. After selecting from among its furniture the objects she wished
to transport to her other abode, she left the rest of its contents to be
disposed of by the auctioneer and took her departure for the Continent.
She was of course accompanied on this journey by her niece, who now had
plenty of leisure to measure and weigh and otherwise handle the windfall
on which Madame Merle had covertly congratulated her. Isabel thought
very often of the fact of her accession of means, looking at it in a
dozen different lights; but we shall not now attempt to follow her train
of thought or to explain exactly why her new consciousness was at first
oppressive. This failure to rise to immediate joy was indeed but brief;
the girl presently made up her mind that to be rich was a virtue because
it was to be able to do, and that to do could only be sweet. It was
the graceful contrary of the stupid side of weakness--especially the
feminine variety. To be weak was, for a delicate young person, rather
graceful, but, after all, as Isabel said to herself, there was a larger
grace than that. Just now, it is true, there was not much to do--once
she had sent off a cheque to Lily and another to poor Edith; but she was
thankful for the quiet months which her mourning robes and her aunt's
fresh widowhood compelled them to spend together. The acquisition of
power made her serious; she scrutinised her power with a kind of tender
ferocity, but was not eager to exercise it. She began to do so during
a stay of some weeks which she eventually made with her aunt in Paris,
though in ways that will inevitably present themselves as trivial. They
were the ways most naturally imposed in a city in which the shops are
the admiration of the world, and that were prescribed unreservedly by
the guidance of Mrs. Touchett, who took a rigidly practical view of the
transformation of her niece from a poor girl to a rich one. "Now that
you're a young woman of fortune you must know how to play the part--I
mean to play it well," she said to Isabel once for all; and she added
that the girl's first duty was to have everything handsome. "You don't
know how to take care of your things, but you must learn," she went on;
this was Isabel's second duty. Isabel submitted, but for the present
her imagination was not kindled; she longed for opportunities, but these
were not the opportunities she meant.

Mrs. Touchett rarely changed her plans, and, hav