Still, Elvira was chiefly shallow and selfish, and all her affection
and confidence naturally belonged to her home of the last eight
years. She was bewildered, perhaps a little intoxicated at the sense
of riches, but was really quite ready to lean as much as ever upon
her natural friends and protectors.
However, Lisette's congratulations and exultation rang pleasantly
upon her ear, and she listened and talked freely, asking questions
and rejoicing.
Now Mrs. Gould, to do her justice, measured others by herself, and
really and truly believed that only accident had disconcerted a plan
for concealing the will till Elvira should have been safely married
to Allen Brownlow, and that thus it was the fixed purpose of the
family to keep her and her fortune in their hands, a purpose which
every instinct bade Mrs. Lisette Gould to traverse and overthrow, if
only because she hated such artfulness and meanness. Unfortunately,
too, as she had been a governess, and her father had been a Union
doctor, she could put herself forward as something above a farmer's
wife, indeed "quite as good as Mrs. Brownlow."
All Mrs. Evelyn's civility had not redeemed her from the imputation
of being "high," and Elvira was quite ready to call hers a very dull
house.
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