Jealous of her--jealous of her with Gilbert?
The idea just then suggested no near reality.

She almost wished jealousy had been possible; it would have made in a manner for refreshment.

Wasn't it in a manner one of the symptoms of happiness?
Madame Merle, however, was wise, so wise that she might have been pretending to know Isabel better than Isabel knew herself.

This young woman had always been fertile in resolutions--any of them of an elevated character; but at no period had they flourished (in the privacy of her heart) more richly than to-day.
It is true that they all had a family likeness; they might have been summed up in the determination that if she was to be unhappy it should not be by a fault of her own.

Her poor winged spirit had always had a great desire to do its best, and it had not as yet been seriously discouraged.