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’s treatment to her on her return.  Though she had suffered much, her spirit was unbroken.  Sir Hugh was, in truth, responsible for her reception in England.  Had he come forward like a brother, all might have been well.  But it was too late now for Sir Hugh Clavering to remedy the evil he had done, and he should be made to understand that Lady Ongar would not become a suppliant to him for mercy.  She was striving to think how “rich she was in horses, how rich in broidered garments, and in gold,” as she sat solitary over her breakfast; but her mind would run off to other things, cumbering itself with unnecessary miseries and useless indignation.  Had she not her price in her hand?