In this excerpt from Guy de Maupassant's "The Necklace," which group of words helps the reader understand the meaning of the word poverty? The girl was one of those pretty and charming young creatures who sometimes are born, as if by a slip of fate, into a family of clerks. She had no
dowry, no expectations, no way of being known, understood, loved, married by any rich and distingulshed man; so she let herself be married to
a little clerk of the Ministry of Public Instruction.
She dressed plainly because she could not dress well, but she was unhappy as if she had really fallen from a higher station; since with women
there is neither caste nor rank, for beauty, grace and charm take the place of family and birth. Natural ingenuity, Instinct for what is elegant, a
supple mind are their sole hierarch, and often make of women of the people the equals of the very greatest ladies.
Mathilde suffered ceaselessly, feeling herself born to enjoy all delicacies and all luxuries. She was distressed at the poverty of her dwelling, at
the bareness of the walls, at the shabby chairs, the ugliness of the curtains. All those things, of which another woman of her rank would never
even have been conscious, tortured her and made her angry. The sight of the little Breton peasant who did her humble housework aroused in
her despairing regſets and bewildering dreams. She thought of silent antechambers hung with Oriental tapestry, illumined by tall bronze
candelabra, and of two great footmen in knee breeches who sleep in the big armchairs, made drowsy by the oppressive heat of the stove. She
thought of long rution halls hung with ancient silk, of the dainty cabinets containing priceless curiosities and of the little coquettish
perfumed reception rooms made for chatting at five o'clock with intimate friends, with men famous and sought after, whom all women envy and
whose attention they all desire.