there were eight of us in all, Mrs. Strange coming last, with excuses for
being late. I had somehow figured her as a person rather mystical and
recluse in appearance, perhaps on account of her name, and I had imagined
her tall and superb. But she was, really, rather small, though not below
the woman's average, and she had a face more round than otherwise, with a
sort of business-like earnestness, but a very charming smile, and
presently, as I saw, an American sense of humor. She had brown hair and
gray eyes, and teeth not too regular to be monotonous; her mouth was very
sweet, whether she laughed or sat gravely silent. She at once affected me
like a person who had been sobered beyond her nature by responsibilities,
and had steadily strengthened under the experiences of life. She was
dressed with a sort of personal taste, in a rich gown of black lace,
which came up to her throat; and she did not subject me to that
embarrassment I always feel in the presence of a lady who is much
decolletee, when I sit next her or face to face with her: I cannot always
look at her without a sense of taking an immodest advantage. Sometimes I
find a kind of pathos in this sacrifice of fashion, which affects me as
if the poor lady were wearing that sort of gown because she thought she
really ought, and then I keep my eyes firmly on hers, or avert them
altogether; but there are other cases which have not this appealing
quality. Yet in the very worst of the cases it would be a mistake to
suppose that there was a display personally meant of the display
personally made. Even then it would be found that the gown was worn so
because the dressmaker had made it so, and, whether she had made it
in this country or in Europe, that she had made it in compliance with a
European custom. In fact, all the society customs of the Americans follow
some European original, and usually some English original; and it is only
fair to say that in this particular custom they do not go to the English
extreme.