She should, long ago, have worn spectacles, but from some strange half-conscious vanity had always refused to do so.

Every year her sight grew worse.

She was wearing now a dress of black silk, very badly made, cut to display her long skinny neck and bony shoulders.

She wore her clothes as though she struggled between a disdain for such vanities and a desire to appear attractive.
Her manner of twisting her eyelids and wrinkling her nose gave her a peevish expression, but, behind that, there was a hint of pathos, a half-seen glimpse of a soul that desired friendship and affection.

She was very tall and there was something masculine in the long angularity of her limbs.