In simple corporeal presentment she was of a fair and clear
complexion, rather pale than pink, slim in build and elastic in
movement. Her look expressed a tendency to wait for others'
thoughts before uttering her own; possibly also to wait for
others' deeds before her own doing. In her small, delicate mouth,
which had perhaps hardly settled down to its matured curves, there
was a gentleness that might hinder sufficient self-assertion for
her own good. She had well-formed eyebrows which, had her
portrait been painted, would probably have been done in Prout's or
Vandyke brown.

There was nothing remarkable in her dress just now, beyond a
natural fitness and a style that was recent for the streets of
Sherton. But, indeed, had it been the reverse, and quite
striking, it would have meant just as little. For there can be
hardly anything less connected with a woman's personality than
drapery which she has neither designed, manufactured, cut, sewed,
or even seen, except by a glance of approval when told that such
and such a shape and color must be had because it has been decided
by others as imperative at that particular time.

What people, therefore, saw of her in a cursory view was very
little; in truth, mainly something that was not she. The woman
herself was a shadowy, conjectural creature who had little to do
with the outlines presented to Sherton eyes; a shape in the gloom,
whose true description could only be approximated by putting
together a movement now and a glance then, in that patient and
long-continued attentiveness which nothing but watchful loving-
kindness ever troubles to give.