So she floated forward, charmingly and inexorably. She was what in the
Five Towns is called "a stylish piece of goods." She wore a
black-and-white frock, of a small check pattern, with a black belt and
long black gloves, and she held over her serenity a black parasol richly
flounced with black lace--a toilet unusual in the district, and as
effective as it was unusual. She knew how to carry it. She was a tall
girl, and generously formed, with a complexion between fair and dark;
her age, perhaps, about twenty-five. She had the eye of an empress--and
not an empress-consort either, nor an empress who trembles in secret at
the rumour of cabals and intrigues. Yes, considered as a decoration of
the terrace, she was possibly the finest, most dazzling thing that
Bursley could have produced; and Bursley doubtless regretted that it
could only claim her as a daughter by adoption.

Approaching, step by dainty and precise step, the seat invested by Mr.
James Ollerenshaw, she arrived at the point whence she could distinguish
the features of her forestaller; she was somewhat short-sighted. She
gave no outward sign of fear, irresolution, cowardice. But if she had
not been more afraid of her own contempt than of anything else in the
world, she would have run away; she would have ceased being an empress
and declined suddenly into a scared child. However, her fear of her own
contempt kept her spine straight, her face towards the danger, and her
feet steadily moving.

"It's not my fault," she said to herself. "I meant to occupy that bench,
and occupy it I will. What have I to be ashamed of?"

And she did occupy that bench. She contrived to occupy it without seeing
Mr. Ollerenshaw. Each separate movement of hers denied absolutely the
existence of Mr. Ollerenshaw. She arranged her dress, and her parasol,