He had scarcely any other "effects" by that time, for, actuated by his too fervent faith, he had been living upon the principle of his fortune; and at five-and-thirty years of age Mrs.Yorke found herself a widow, with a stock of very varied experience indeed, but not much more of worldly wealth than she had had to start with.

It was hard, after half a lifetime, to resume the same semi-relative, semi-dependent position under her uncle's roof which she had occupied before; but no better offered itself, and she was glad to accept it.

Her natural attractions were still wondrously preserved to her; and, perhaps, on the occasion of her second nuptials (and the fact of her first was carefully concealed), her age excited less astonishment than her youth had done in the former instance.
Yet now at fifty-three, this woman, as remarkable for her talents as for her beauty, and who, if but for a brief period, had once stood "on fortune's crowning slope," found herself with little beyond a bare subsistence, which she received without gratitude from the hands of Carew.

What she derived from her lodging-house defrayed the somewhat lavish expenditure of her son Richard.

She was far, however, from complaining of his extravagances.