To be at rest, and independent, with her child within her arms, had been all that the woman asked of the gods.

For herself it sufficed.

For herself she was able to acknowledge that the rest which she had at least obtained was infinitely preferable to the unrest of her past life.

But she soon learned,--as she had not expected to learn before she made the experiment,--that that which was to her peace, was to her daughter life within a tomb.

"Mother, is it always to be like this ?" Had her child not carried the weight of good blood, had some small grocer or country farmer been her father, she might have come down to the neighbouring town of Ennistimon, and found a fitting mate there.
Would it not have been better so?
From that weight of good blood,--or gift, if it please us to call it,--what advantage would ever come to her girl?
It can not really be that all those who swarm in the world below the bar of gentlehood are less blessed, or intended to be less blessed, than the few who float in the higher air.