Virginia's was inclined to be ruddy; it surmounted her small head in coils and plaits not without beauty.

The voice of the elder sister had contracted an unpleasant hoarseness, but she spoke with good enunciation; a slight stiffness and pedantry of phrase came, no doubt, of her scholastic habits.

Virginia was much more natural in manner and fluent in speech, even as she moved far more gracefully.
It was now sixteen years since the death of Dr.Madden of Clevedon.

The story of his daughters' lives in the interval may be told with brevity suitable to so unexciting a narrative.
When the doctor's affairs were set in order, it was found that the patrimony of his six girls amounted, as nearly as possible, to eight hundred pounds.
Eight hundred pounds is, to be sure, a sum of money; but how, in these circumstances, was it to be applied?
There came over from Cheltenham a bachelor uncle, aged about sixty.
This gentleman lived on an annuity of seventy pounds, which would terminate when _he_ did.

It might be reckoned to him for righteousness that he spent the railway fare between Cheltenham and Clevedon to attend his brother's funeral, and to speak a kind word to his nieces.
Influence he had none; initiative, very little.