And this was not the case so much on account of any special
disadvantage under which she laboured, as because she was ambitious
of doing the very uttermost with those advantages which she
possessed. Her own birth had not been high, and that of her husband,
we may perhaps say, had been very low. He had been old when she had
married him, and she had had little power of making any progress till
he had left her a widow. Then she found herself possessed of money,
certainly; of wit,--as she believed; and of a something in her
personal appearance which, as she plainly told herself, she might
perhaps palm off upon the world as beauty. She was a woman who did
not flatter herself, who did not strongly believe in herself, who
could even bring herself to wonder that men and women in high
position should condescend to notice such a one as her. With all her
ambition, there was a something of genuine humility about her; and
with all the hardness she had learned there was a touch of womanly
softness which would sometimes obtrude itself upon her heart. When
she found a woman really kind to her, she would be very kind in
return. And though she prized wealth, and knew that her money was her
only rock of strength, she could be lavish with it, as though it were
dirt.
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