Some women can make their personality pervade the atmosphere of a whole banqueting hall; Elfride's was no more pervasive than that of a kitten.
Elfride had as her own the thoughtfulness which appears in the face of the Madonna della Sedia, without its rapture: the warmth and spirit of the type of woman's feature most common to the beauties--mortal and immortal--of Rubens, without their insistent fleshiness.

The characteristic expression of the female faces of Correggio--that of the yearning human thoughts that lie too deep for tears--was hers sometimes, but seldom under ordinary conditions.
The point in Elfride Swancourt's life at which a deeper current may be said to have permanently set in, was one winter afternoon when she found herself standing, in the character of hostess, face to face with a man she had never seen before--moreover, looking at him with a Miranda-like curiosity and interest that she had never yet bestowed on a mortal.
On this particular day her father, the vicar of a parish on the sea-swept outskirts of Lower Wessex, and a widower, was suffering from an attack of gout.

After finishing her household supervisions Elfride became restless, and several times left the room, ascended the staircase, and knocked at her father's chamber-door.
'Come in!' was always answered in a hearty out-of-door voice from the inside.
'Papa,' she said on one occasion to the fine, red-faced, handsome man of forty, who, puffing and fizzing like a bursting bottle, lay on the bed wrapped in a dressing-gown, and every now and then enunciating, in spite of himself, about one letter of some word or words that were almost oaths; 'papa, will you not come downstairs this evening ?' She spoke distinctly: he was rather deaf.
'Afraid not--eh-hh!--very much afraid I shall not, Elfride.

Piph-ph-ph! I can't bear even a handkerchief upon this deuced toe of mine, much less a stocking or slipper--piph-ph-ph! There 'tis again! No, I shan't get up till to-morrow.' 'Then I hope this London man won't come; for I don't know what I should do, papa.' 'Well, it would be awkward, certainly.' 'I should hardly think he would come to-day.' 'Why ?' 'Because the wind blows so.' 'Wind! What ideas you have, Elfride! Who ever heard of wind stopping a man from doing his business?
The idea of this toe of mine coming on so suddenly!...If he should come, you must send him up to me, I suppose, and then give him some food and put him to bed in some way.

Dear me, what a nuisance all this is!' 'Must he have dinner ?' 'Too heavy for a tired man at the end of a tedious journey.' 'Tea, then ?' 'Not substantial enough.' 'High tea, then?
There is cold fowl, rabbit-pie, some pasties, and things of that kind.' 'Yes, high tea.' 'Must I pour out his tea, papa ?' 'Of course; you are the mistress of the house.' 'What! sit there all the time with a stranger, just as if I knew him, and not anybody to introduce us ?' 'Nonsense, child, about introducing; you know better than that.