been very uncomfortable." "My dear," said her mother, "we have
disposed of three months out of a two years' period of danger. In two
years from Sir Florian's death she will be married again."

When this was said Lizzie had been a widow nearly a year, and had
bided her time upon the whole discreetly. Some foolish letters she
had written,--chiefly to the lawyer about her money and property; and
some foolish things she had said,--as when she told Ellinor Greystock
that the Portray property was her own for ever, to do what she liked
with it. The sum of money left to her by her husband had by that time
been paid into her own hands, and she had opened a banker's account.
The revenues from the Scotch estate,--some L4,000 a year,--were
clearly her own for life. The family diamond-necklace was still in
her possession, and no answer had been given by her to a postscript
to a lawyer's letter in which a little advice had been given
respecting it. At the end of another year, when she had just
reached the age of twenty-two, and had completed her second year
of widowhood, she was still Lady Eustace, thus contradicting the
prophecy made by the dean's wife. It was then spring, and she had
a house of her own in London. She had broken openly with Lady
Linlithgow. She had opposed, though not absolutely refused, all
overtures of brotherly care from John Eustace. She had declined
a further invitation, both for herself and for her child, to the
palace. And she had positively asserted her intention of keeping the
diamonds. Her late husband, she said, had given the diamonds to her.
As they were supposed to be worth L10,000, and were really family
diamonds, the matter was felt by all concerned to be one of much
importance. And she was oppressed by a heavy load of ignorance, which
became serious from the isolation of her position. She had learned to
draw cheques, but she had no other correct notion as to business. She
knew nothing as to spending money, saving it, or investing it. Though
she was clever, sharp, and greedy, she had no idea what her money
would do, and what it would not; and there was no one whom she would
trust to tell her. She had a young cousin, a barrister,--a son
of the dean's, whom she perhaps liked better than any other of
her relations,--but she declined advice even from her friend the
barrister. She would have no dealings on her own behalf with the old
family solicitor of the Eustaces,--the gentleman who had now applied
v