"_
--RUSKIN.
IDEALA
CHAPTER I.
She came among us without flourish of trumpets. She just slipped into
her place, almost unnoticed, but once she was settled there it seemed
as if we had got something we had wanted all our lives, and we should
have missed her as you would miss the thrushes in the spring, or any
other sweet familiar thing. But what the secret of her charm was I
cannot say. She was full of inconsistencies. She disliked ostentation,
and never wore those ornamental fidgets ladies delight in, but she
would take a piece of priceless lace to cover her head when she went
to water her flowers. And she said rings were a mistake; if your hands
were ugly they drew attention to them, if pretty they hid their
beauty; yet she wore half-a-dozen worthless ones habitually for the
love of those who gave them, to her. It was said that she was striking
in appearance, but cold and indifferent in manner. Some, on whom she
had never turned her eyes, called her repellent. But it was noticed
that men who took her down to dinner, or had any other opportunity of
talking to her, were never very positive in, what they said of her
afterwards.
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