and as for her wealth, had she not stolen it?
Did not the weight of the theft sit so heavy on her, that her brightest
thought was one which prompted her to abandon it?

As to that idea of giving up her income and her house, and calling
herself again Julia Brabazon, though there was something in the poetry
of it which would now and again for half an hour relieve her, yet she
hardly proposed such a course to herself as a reality. The world in
which she had lived had taught her to laugh at romance, to laugh at it
even while she liked its beauty; and she would tell herself that for
such a one as her to do such a thing as this, would be to insure for
herself the ridicule of all who knew her name. What would Sir Hugh say,
and her sister? What Count Pateroff and the faithful Sophie? What all
the Ongar tribe, who would reap the rich harvest of her insanity? These
latter would offer to provide her a place in some convenient asylum, and
the others would all agree that such would be her fitting destiny. She
could bear the idea of walking forth, as she had said, penniless into
the street, without a crust; but she could not bear the idea of being
laughed at when she got there.

To her, in her position, her only escape was by marriage. It was the
solitude of her position which maddened her: its solitude, or the
necessity of breaking that solitude by the presence of those who were
odious to her. Whether it were better to be alone, feeding on the
bitterness of her own thoughts, or to be comforted by the fulsome
flatteries and odious falsenesses of Sophie Gordeloup, she could not
tell. She hated herself for her loneliness, but she hated herself almost
worse for submitting herself to the society of Sophie Gordeloup. Why not
give all that she possessed to Harry Clavering--herself, her income, her
rich pastures and horses and oxen, and try whether the world would not
be better to her when she had done so.

She had learned to laugh at romance, but still she believed in love.
While that bargain was going on as to her settlement, she had laughed at
romance, and had told herself that in this world worldly prosperity was
everything. Sir Hugh then had stood by her with truth, for he had well
understood the matter, and could enter into it with zest. Lord Ongar, in
his state of health, had not been in a position to make close
stipulations as to the dower in the event of his proposed wife becoming
a widow. "No, no; we wont stand that," Sir Hugh