had the merit of being fully

If, as she was bound to own, these symptoms sometimes persistedafter marriage, she could only ascribe them to the unhappy lawof nature which decreed that there was only one Arthur Venning,and only one Susan who could marry him. Her theory, of course,had the merit of being fully supported by her own case. She hadbeen vaguely uncomfortable at home for two or three years now,and a voyage like this with her selfish old aunt, who paid her farebut treated her as servant and companion in one, was typical of thekind of thing people expected of her. Directly she became engaged,Mrs. Paley behaved with instinctive respect, positively protestedwhen Susan as usual knelt down to lace her shoes, and appeared reallygrateful for an hour of Susan's company where she had been used toexact two or three as her right. She therefore foresaw a life of fargreater comfort than she had been used to, and the change had alreadyproduced a great increase of warmth in her feelings towards other people. 　　It was close on twenty years now since Mrs. Paley had been ableto lace her own shoes or even to see them, the disappearance ofher feet having coincided more or less accurately with the deathof her husband, a man of business, soon after which event Mrs. Paleybegan to grow stout. She was a selfish, independent old woman,possessed of a considerable income, which she spent upon the upkeepof a house that needed seven servants and a charwoman in LancasterGate, and another with a garden and carriage-horses in Surrey. 　　Susan's engagement relieved her of the one great anxiety of her life--that her son Christopher should "entangle himself" with his cousin. 　　Now that this familiar source of interest was removed, she felta little low and inclined to see more in Susan than she used to. 　　She had decided to give her a very handsome wedding present, a chequefor two hundred, two hundred and fifty, or possibly, conceivably--it depended upon the under-gardener and Huths' bill for doing upthe drawing-room--three hundred pounds sterling.