Who can tell what memories stirred her heart of days of bellehood in New York, when, for plain ambition's sake, she had put aside a plain, untitled lover to wed Lord Putnam and reign at Castle Raneleigh? They had told her, her maneuvering relatives, that love would be sure to come after marriage.
"But what if I already love another?" the beautiful belle had said, pale with anxiety.
"You will soon forget him on the other side of the ocean, and Lord Putnam will have all your heart," they answered.
They were old in experience, and she was young, so she took their advice, and married her titled lover. Perhaps their assurances proved true, perhaps not. At any rate, she was a faithful wife.
But she was not by any means a disconsolate widow.
And at her daughter's praise of Americans, the proud woman's heart echoed every word, and her thoughts flew across the sea to the old home, and the old days, and the old love.
Perhaps he was dead now. She had not heard of him for many years.
Or if he were not dead, he was probably married to another, to some true-hearted girl who prized love above all else.
There was a sting in the thought, and Lady Putnam sighed and turned away without promising her daughter to take her to America. She had no desire to return to the scene of her old triumphs. She wanted sleeping memories to keep still in the grave where they were buried.