She had no right to keep them--to do so was to lessen whatever merit lay in having secured their possession.

But how destroy them so effectually that there should be no second risk of their falling in such hands?
Mrs.Peniston's icy drawing-room grate shone with a forbidding lustre: the fire, like the lamps, was never lit except when there was company.
Miss Bart was turning to carry the letters upstairs when she heard the opening of the outer door, and her aunt entered the drawing-room.

Mrs.
Peniston was a small plump woman, with a colourless skin lined with trivial wrinkles.

Her grey hair was arranged with precision, and her clothes looked excessively new and yet slightly old-fashioned.

They were always black and tightly fitting, with an expensive glitter: she was the kind of woman who wore jet at breakfast.