Madame Merle had predicted to Mrs. Touchett that after their
young friend had put her hand into her pocket half a dozen times she
would be reconciled to the idea that it had been filled by a
munificent uncle; and the event justified, as it had so often
justified before, that lady's perspicacity. Ralph Touchett had praised
his cousin for being morally inflammable, that is for being quick to
take a hint that was meant as good advice. His advice had perhaps
helped the matter; she had at any rate before leaving San Remo grown
used to feeling rich. The consciousness in question found a proper
place in rather a dense little group of ideas that she had about
herself, and often it was by no means the least agreeable. It took
perpetually for granted a thousand good intentions. She lost herself
in a maze of visions; the fine things to be done by a rich,
independent, generous girl who took a large human view of occasions
and obligations were sublime in the mass. Her fortune therefore became
to her mind a part of her better self; it gave her importance, gave
her even, to her own imagination, a certain ideal beauty. What it
did for her in the imagination of others is another affair, and on
this point we must also touch in time.
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