Page:In a winter city, by Ouida.djvu/25

18 at Christmas time. That done, she considered nothing more could be expected of her: it was certainly not necessary that she should bore herself.

To spend money was an easy undemonstrative manner of acknowledging the ties of nature, which pleased and suited her. Perhaps she would have been capable of showing her affection in nobler and more self-sacrificing ways; but then there was nothing in her circumstances to call for that kind of thing; no trouble ever came nigh her; and the chariot of her life rolled as smoothly as her own victoria à huit ressorts.

For the ten years of her womanhood the Lady Hilda had had the command of immense wealth. Anything short of that seemed to her abject poverty. She could theorise about making herself into Greuze or Gainsboro' pictures in serge or dimity; but, in fact, she could not imagine herself without all the black sables and silver fox, the velvets and silks, the diamonds and emeralds, the embroideries and laces that made her a thing which Titian would have worshipped.

She could not imagine herself for an instant