As a picture, the figure and its entourage might have been artistically effective; but as Beverley saw it in actual life the first impression was rather embarrassing.

Somehow he felt almost irresistibly invited to laugh, though he had never been much given to risibility.

The blending, or rather the juxtaposition, of extremes--a face, a form immediately witching, and a costume odd to grotesquery--had made an assault upon his comprehension at once so sudden and so direct that his dignity came near being disastrously broken up.

A splendidly beautiful child comically clad would have made much the same half delightful, half displeasing impression.
Beverley could not stare at the girl, and no sooner had he turned his back upon her than the picture in his mind changed like a scene in a kaleidoscope.

He now saw a tall, finely developed figure and a face delicately oval, with a low, wide forehead, arched brows, a straight, slightly tip-tilted nose, a mouth sweet and full, dimpled cheeks, and a strong chin set above a faultless throat.