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do, and that to do could only be sweet. It was the grace-
ful contrary of the stupid side of weakness—especially the
feminine variety. To be weak was, for a delicate young per-
son, rather graceful, but, after all, as Isabel said to herself,
there was a larger grace than that. Just now, it is true, there
was not much to do—once she had sent off a cheque to Lily,
and another to poor Edith; but she was thankful for the qui-
et months which her mourning robes and her aunt’s fresh
widowhood compelled them to spend together. The acquisi-
tion of power made her serious; she scrutinized her power
with a kind of tender ferocity, but was not eager to exercise
it. She began to do so during a stay of some weeks which she
eventually made with her aunt in Paris, though in ways that
will inevitably present themselves as trivial. They were the
ways most naturally imposed in a city in which the shops
are the admiration of the world, and that were prescribed
unreservedly by the guidance of Mrs. Touchett, who took
a rigidly practical view of the transformation of her niece
from a poor girl to a rich one. ‘Now that you’re a young
woman of fortune you must know how to play the part—I
mean to play it well,’ she said to Isabel once for all; and she
added that the girl’s first duty was to have everything hand-
some. ‘You don’t know how to take care of your things, but
you must learn,’ she went on; this was Isabel’s second duty.
Isabel submitted, but for the present her imagination was
not kindled; she longed for opportunities, but these were
not the opportunities she meant.
Mrs. Touchett rarely changed her plans, and, having in-
tended before her husband’s death to spend a part of the

296 The Portrait of a Lady