The passion of this woman's life was power. One cannot be very
powerful with just two hundred a year, and a doubtful position as the
widow of a boy whose relations are prepared to dispute one's marriage.
Mrs. Desmond spent three years in thought, and in caring severely for
the wants of her child. Then she bought four handsome dresses, and
some impressive bonnets, went to a Hydropathic Establishment, and
looked about her. Of the eligible men there Mr. Cecil Underwood
seemed, on enquiry, to be the most eligible. So she married him. He
resisted but little, for his parish needed a clergywoman sadly. The
two hundred pounds was a welcome addition to an income depleted by the
purchase of rare editions, and at the moment crippled by his recent
acquisition of the Omiliac of Vincentius in its original oak boards
and leather strings; and, above all, he saw in the three-year-old
Betty the child he might have had if things had gone otherwise with
him and another when they both were young.

Mrs. Desmond had felt certain she could rule a parish. Mrs. Cecil
Underwood did rule it--as she had known she could. She ruled her
husband too. And Betty. When she caught cold from working all day
among damp evergreens for the Christmas decorations, and, developing
pneumonia, died, she died resentfully, thanking God that she had
always done her duty, and quite unable to imagine how the world would
go on without her. She felt almost sure that in cutting short her
career of usefulness her Creator was guilty of an error of judgment
which He would sooner or later find reason to regret.

Her husband mourned her. He had the habit of her, of her strong
capable ways, the clockwork precision of her household and parish
arrangements. But as time went on he saw that perhaps he was more
comfortable without her: as a reformed drunkard sees that it is better