If she was nothing to the present, the present was still less to her.

As to society, her sensitiveness to the unpleasant impression made by her personal appearance rendered social gatherings distasteful to her, and she wore a heavy veil when she went to church.
She was an only child.

Her mother had long been dead, and when about this time her father died she was left without near kin.

With no ties of contemporary interest to hold her to the present she fell more and more under the influence of the habit of retrospection.
The only brightness of colour which life could ever have for her lay behind in the girlhood which had ended but yesterday, and was yet so completely ended.

She found her only happiness in the recollections of that period which she retained.