But she declared to herself that she would respect the judgment neither of the people nor of the books.

To be poor alone, to have to live without a husband, to look forward to a life in which there would be nothing of a career, almost nothing to do, to await the vacuity of an existence in which she would be useful to no one, was a destiny which she could teach herself to endure, because it might probably be forced upon her by necessity.

Were her father to die there would hardly be bread for that female flock to eat.

As it was, she was eating the bread of a man in whose house she was no more than a visitor.

The lot of a woman, as she often told herself, was wretched, unfortunate, almost degrading.