She could hide the unwelcome approach by art,--hide it more completely than can most women of her age; but, there it was, stealing on her with short grey hairs over her ears and around her temples, with little wrinkles round her eyes easily concealed by objectionable cosmetics, and a look of weariness round the mouth which could only be removed by that self-assertion of herself which practice had made always possible to her in company, though it now so frequently deserted her when she was alone.
But she was not a woman to be unhappy because she was growing old.

Her happiness, like that of most of us, was ever in the future,--never reached but always coming.

She, however, had not looked for happiness to love and loveliness, and need not therefore be disappointed on that score.

She had never really determined what it was that might make her happy,--having some hazy aspiration after social distinction and literary fame, in which was ever commingled solicitude respecting money.

But at the present moment her great fears and her great hopes were centred on her son.