and I would not die yet, I have still so many claims on life, and it
has hitherto made good so few of them! Ah, my poor, hapless
existence! what has it been, but an endless chain of renunciations
and deprivations, of leafless flowers and dissolving views? It is
true, I have never learned to know what is usually called
misfortune. But is there a greater misfortune than not to be happy;
than to sigh through a life without wish or hope; to wear away the
endless, weary days of an existence without delight, yet surrounded
with luxury and splendor?"

"You were not unfortunate, and yet you are an orphan, fatherless and
motherless?"

"I lost my mother so early that I scarcely knew her. And when my
father died I could hardly consider it other than a blessing, for he
had never shown himself a father, but always only as a harsh,
tyrannical master to me."

"But you were married?"

"Married!" said Catharine, with a melancholy smile. "That is to say,
my father sold me to a gouty old man, on whose couch I spent a few
comfortless, awfully wearisome years, till Lord Neville made me a
rich widow. But what did my independence avail me, when I had bound
myself in new fetters? Hitherto I had been the slave of my father,
of my husband; now I was the slave of my wealth. I ceased to be a
sick-nurse to become steward of my estate. Ah! this was the most
tedious period of my life. And yet I owe to it my only real
happiness, for at that period I became acquainted with you, my Jane,
and my heart, which had never yet learned to know a tenderer