Henceforth her father's influence exerted itself freely, and Annabel had just reached the age for profiting most by it.
Her bringing up between a brilliant drawing-room and a well-stocked library had preserved her from the two dangers to which English girls of the free-born class are mainly exposed: she escaped Puritanism, yet was equally withheld from frivolous worldliness.

But it was well that this balance, admirably maintained thus far, should not be submitted to the risks of such a life as awaited her, if there had come no change of conditions.

She would be a beautiful woman, and was not unaware of it; her social instincts, which Society would straightway do its best to abuse, might outweigh her spiritual tendencies.

But a year of life by Ullswater consolidated her womanhood.

She bent herself to books with eagerness.