But it was not that you might know your uncle that I brought you to Europe." A perfectly veracious speech; but, as Isabel thought, not as perfectly timed.

She had leisure to think of this and other matters.

She took a solitary walk every day and spent vague hours in turning over books in the library.

Among the subjects that engaged her attention were the adventures of her friend Miss Stackpole, with whom she was in regular correspondence.

Isabel liked her friend's private epistolary style better than her public; that is she felt her public letters would have been excellent if they had not been printed.
Henrietta's career, however, was not so successful as might have been wished even in the interest of her private felicity; that view of the inner life of Great Britain which she was so eager to take appeared to dance before her like an ignis fatuus.