Too clever to be really happy in the life to which she had condemned herself.

She had been born many years too early to follow up any of the various paths now open to the intelligent, educated woman.

Yet she belonged, by birth and upbringing, to that age-long tradition of command which perhaps counts for most of all to the one class which has remained in England much the same for generations.
The Pendarths had once been very great people in Cornwall, and long records of the family are to be found in all county histories.

Olivia Pendarth was wordlessly very proud of their lineage, and it is no exaggeration to say that she would have died rather than in any way disgrace it.
A woman of great activity, she had perforce no way of expending her energies excepting in connection with the people about her, and always in intention at least she spent herself to some beneficent purpose.

Yet there was a considerable circle who much disliked her and whom she herself regarded with almost limitless scorn.