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Miss Bretherton by Mrs. Humphry Ward
page 21 of 185 (11%)
failures which no one with any self-respect should allow themselves to
risk.

However, fortune was once more kind to one of her chief favourites. Mrs.
Stuart was just listening with a tired face to the well-meant, but
depressing condolences of the barrister standing by her, who was
describing to her the 'absurd failure' of a party to meet the leading
actress of the _Comédie Française_, to which he had been invited in the
previous season, when the sound of wheels was heard outside. Mrs. Stuart
made a quick step forward, leaving her Job's comforter planted in the
middle of his story; the hum of talk dropped in an instant, and the crowd
about the door fell hastily back as it was thrown open and Miss
Bretherton entered.

What a glow and radiance of beauty entered the room with her! She came in
rapidly, her graceful head thrown eagerly back, her face kindling and her
hands outstretched as she caught sight of Mrs. Stuart. There was a vigour
and splendour of life about her that made all her movements large and
emphatic, and yet, at the same time, nothing could exceed the delicate
finish of the physical structure itself. What was indeed characteristic
in her was this combination of extraordinary perfectness of detail, with
a flash, a warmth, a force of impression, such as often raises the lower
kinds of beauty into excellence and picturesqueness, but is seldom found
in connection with those types where the beauty is, as it were,
sufficient in and by itself, and does not need anything but its own
inherent harmonies of line and hue to impress itself on the beholders.

There were some, indeed, who maintained that the smallness and delicacy
of her features was out of keeping with her stature and her ample gliding
motions. But here, again, the impression of delicacy was transformed half
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