d to know whether there was any privilege she enjoyed in Europe
which the society of that city might not offer her. We know ourselves
that Isabel had made conquests--whether inferior or not to those she
might have effected in her native land it would be a delicate matter to
decide; and it is not altogether with a feeling of complacency that
I again mention that she had not rendered these honourable victories
public. She had not told her sister the history of Lord Warburton, nor
had she given her a hint of Mr. Osmond's state of mind; and she had had
no better reason for her silence than that she didn't wish to speak.
It was more romantic to say nothing, and, drinking deep, in secret, of
romance, she was as little disposed to ask poor Lily's advice as she
would have been to close that rare volume forever. But Lily knew nothing
of these discriminations, and could only pronounce her sister's career
a strange anti-climax--an impression confirmed by the fact that Isabel's
silence about Mr. Osmond, for instance, was in direct proportion to the
frequency with which he occupied her thoughts. As this happened very
often it sometimes appeared to Mrs. Ludlow that she had lost her
courage. So uncanny a result of so exhilarating an incident as
inheriting a fortune was of course perplexing to the cheerful Lily; it
added to her general sense that Isabel was not at all like other people.

Our young lady's courage, however, might have been taken as reaching
its height after her relations had gone home. She could imagine braver
things than spending the winter in Paris--Paris had sides by which it
so resembled New York, Paris was like smart, neat prose--and her close
correspondence with Madame Merle did much to stimulate such flights. She
had never had a keener sense of freedom, of the absolute boldness and
wantonness of liberty, than when she turned away from the platform
at the Euston Station on one of the last days of November, after the
departure of the train that was to convey poor Lily, her husband and her
children to their ship at Liverpool. It had been good for her to regale;
she was very conscious of that; she was very observant, as we know, of
what was good for her, and her effort was constantly to find something
that was good enough. To profit by the present advantage till the latest
moment she had made the journey from Paris with the unenvied travellers.
She would have accompanied them to Liverpool as well, only Edmund Ludlow
ha