This was the only allusion the
visitor, in her great good taste, made for the present to her young
friend's inheritance.
Mrs. Touchett had no purpose of awaiting in London the sale of her
house. After selecting from among its furniture the objects she wished
to transport to her other abode, she left the rest of its contents
to be disposed of by the auctioneer and took her departure for the
Continent. She was of course accompanied on this journey by her niece,
who now had plenty of leisure to measure and weigh and otherwise
handle the windfall on which Madame Merle had covertly congratulated
her. Isabel thought very often of the fact of her accession of
means, looking at it in a dozen different lights; but we shall not now
attempt to follow her train of thought or to explain exactly why her
new consciousness was at first oppressive. This failure to rise to
immediate joy was indeed but brief; the girl presently made up her
mind that to be rich was a virtue because it was to be able to do, and
that to do could only be sweet. It was the graceful contrary of the
stupid side of weakness- especially the feminine variety. To be weak
was, for a delicate young person, rather graceful, but, after all,
as Isabel said to herself, there was a larger grace than that.
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