"I don't call it dissimulation. But of course a girl ought to hide
her feelings. Don't you think it would have been better for her not
to have looked so obviously out of humour when you first saw her the
other night?"

"She wouldn't have interested me so much, then, and she probably
wouldn't have had your acquaintance now."

"Oh, I don't mean to say that even that kind of girl won't get on,
if she gives her mind to it; but I think I should prefer a little
less plain-mindedness, as you call it, if I were a man."

I did not know exactly what to say to this, and I let Mrs. March go
on.

"It's so in the smallest thing. If you're choosing a thing for her,
and she likes another, she lets you feel it at once. I don't mean
that she's rude about it, but she seems to set herself so square
across the way, and you come up with a kind of bump against her. I
don't think that's very feminine. That's what I mean by mannish.
You always know where to find her."

I don't know why this criticism should have amused me so much, but I
began to laugh quite uncontrollably, and I laughed on and on. Mrs.
March kept her temper with me admirably. When I was quiet again,
she said -

"Mrs. Deering is a person that wins your heart at once; she has that
appealing quality. You can see that she's cowed by her husband,