lovely, accomplished, exquisitely dressed, humbly glad
of the presence of any sort of young man; but the Laphams
had no skill or courage to make themselves noticed, far less
courted by the solitary invalid, or clergyman, or artist.
They lurked helplessly about in the hotel parlours,
looking on and not knowing how to put themselves forward.
Perhaps they did not care a great deal to do so.
They had not a conceit of themselves, but a sort of content
in their own ways that one may notice in certain families.
The very strength of their mutual affection was a barrier
to worldly knowledge; they dressed for one another;
they equipped their house for their own satisfaction;
they lived richly to themselves, not because they were selfish,
but because they did not know how to do otherwise.
The elder daughter did not care for society, apparently.
The younger, who was but three years younger, was not yet
quite old enough to be ambitious of it. With all her
wonderful beauty, she had an innocence almost vegetable.
When her beauty, which in its immaturity was crude and harsh,
suddenly ripened, she bloomed and glowed with the unconsciousness
of a flower; she not merely did not feel herself admired,
but hardly knew herself discovered. If she dressed well,
perhaps too well, it was because she had the instinct
of dress; but till she met this young man who was so nice
to her at Baie St. Paul, she had scarcely lived a detached,
individual life, so wholly had she depended on her mother
and her sister for her opinions, almost her sensations.
She took account of everything he did and said,
pondering it, and trying to make out exactly what he meant,
to the inflection of a syllable, the slightest movement