By no means the smallest part of Ida's heroism was that involved in this matter of external appearance.

A beautiful woman can never be indifferent to the way in which her beauty is arrayed.

That Waymark was not indifferent to such things she knew well, and often she suffered from the thought that one strong means of attraction was lost to her.
If at one moment Ida was conscious of her claim to inspire a noble enthusiasm, at another she fell into the saddest self-distrust, and, in her hunger for love, would gladly have sought every humblest aid of grace and adornment.

So she had yielded to the needs of her heart, and only this morning was gladdened by the charm of some new clothing which became her well, and which Waymark would see in a day or two.

It lay there before her now that she returned home, and, in the first onset of trouble, she sat down and cried over it.
She suffered the more, too, that there had been something of a falling off of late in the good health she generally enjoyed.