at something of
the price had come to her thus in the shape of land, and beeves, and
wide, heavy outside garniture. From them she would pluck an interest
which mere money could not have given her. She was out early, therefore,
that she might look round upon the things that were her own.

And there came upon her a feeling that she would not empty this sweet
cup at one draught, that she would daily somewhat with the rich banquet
that was spread for her. She had many griefs to overcome, much sorrow to
conquer, perhaps a long period of desolation to assuage, and she would
not be prodigal of her resources. As she looked around her while she
walked, almost furtively, lest some gardener as he spied her might guess
her thoughts and tell how my lady was revelling in her pride of
possession--it appeared to her that those novelties in which she was to
find her new interest were without end. There was not a tree there, not
a shrub, not a turn in the walks, which should not become her friend.
She did not go far from the house, not even down to the water. She was
husbanding her resources. But yet she lost herself amidst the paths, and
tried to find a joy in feeling that she had done so. It was all her own.
It was the price of what she had done: and the price was even now being
paid into her hand--paid with current coin and of full weight.

As she sat down alone to her breakfast, she declared to herself that
this should be enough for her--that it should satisfy her. She had made
her bargain with her eyes open, and would not now ask for things which
had not been stipulated in the contract. She was alone, and all the
world was turning its back on her. The relatives of her late husband
would, as a matter of course, be her enemies. Them she had never seen,
and that they should speak evil of her seemed to be only natural. But
her own relatives were removed from her by a gulf nearly equally wide.
Of Brabazon cousins she had none nearer than the third or fourth degree
of cousinship, and of them she had never taken heed, and expected no
heed from them. Her set of friends would naturally have been the same as
her sister's, and would have been made up of those she had known when
she was one of Sir Hugh's family. But from Sir Hugh she was divided now
as widely as from the Ongar people, and, for any purposes of society,
from her sister also. Sir Hugh had allowed his wife to invite her to
Clavering, but to this she would not submit after Sir Hugh'