The lady herself was not beautiful, or clever, or of imposing manners,--nor was she of high birth.

But neither was she ugly, nor unbearably stupid.

Her manners were, at any rate, innocent; and as to her birth,--seeing that, from the first, she was not supposed to have had any,--no disappointment was felt.

Her father had been a coal-merchant.

She was always called Mrs George, and the effort made respecting her by everybody in and about the family was to treat her as though she were a figure of a woman, a large well-dressed resemblance of a being, whom it was necessary for certain purposes that the de Courcys should carry in their train.