Wonders of the Universe."

The synopsis added that: "Ursula Bart, a charming and
unsophisticated young American girl possessed of an elusive
expression makes her first acquaintance with London society."

Here you have a week's unnecessary work on the part of the author
boiled down to its essentials. She was young. One hardly expects an
elderly heroine. The "young" might have been dispensed with,
especially seeing it is told us that she was a girl. But maybe this
is carping. There are young girls and old girls. Perhaps it is as
well to have it in black and white; she was young. She was an
American young girl. There is but one American young girl in English
fiction. We know by heart the unconventional things that she will
do, the startlingly original things that she will say, the fresh
illuminating thoughts that will come to her as, clad in a loose robe
of some soft clinging stuff, she sits before the fire, in the
solitude of her own room.

To complete her she had an "elusive expression." The days when we
used to catalogue the heroine's "points" are past. Formerly it was
possible. A man wrote perhaps some half-a-dozen novels during the
whole course of his career. He could have a dark girl for the first,
a light girl for the second, sketch a merry little wench for the
third, and draw you something stately for the fourth. For the
remaining two he could go abroad. Nowadays, when a man turns out a
novel and six short stories once a year, description has to be
dispensed with. It is not the writer's fault. There is not
sufficient variety in the sex. We used to introduce her thus: