She had now the fine expectation of her youth, her health, her optimism, her ignorance of the world.

When these things left her she would perhaps be a yet plainer woman.

In her dress she was not clever.

Her clothes were ugly with the coarse drab grey of their material and the unskilful workmanship that had created them.

And yet there would be some souls who would see in her health, her youth, the kind sympathy of her eyes and mouth, the high nobility of her forehead from which her hair was brushed back, an attraction that might hold them more deeply than an obvious beauty.
Uncle Mathew although he was a silly man was one of these perceptive souls, and had he not been compelled by his circumstances to think continually about himself, would have loved his niece very dearly.