If the idea of wealth was present to them it was only in so far as it was bound with that other success.

Mrs.Gould, an orphan from early childhood and without fortune, brought up in an atmosphere of intellectual interests, had never considered the aspects of great wealth.

They were too remote, and she had not learned that they were desirable.

On the other hand, she had not known anything of absolute want.

Even the very poverty of her aunt, the Marchesa, had nothing intolerable to a refined mind; it seemed in accord with a great grief: it had the austerity of a sacrifice offered to a noble ideal.