'And you know, Miss Lucy, you're so tall, you can stand them chancy things'-- her little friend had said to her, when _she_ had wondered whether the check might not be too large.
And yet only with a passing wonder.

She could not honestly say that her dress had cost her much thought then or at any other time.

She had been content to be very simple, to admire other girls' cleverness.

There had been influences upon her own childhood, however, that had somehow separated her from the girls around her, had made it difficult for her to think and plan as they did.
She rose with the dress in her hands, and as she did so, she caught the glory of the sunset through the open window.
She ran to look, all her senses flooded with the sudden beauty,--when she heard a man's voice as it seemed close beside her.

Looking to the left, she distinguished a balcony, and a dark figure that had just emerged upon it.
Mr.Manisty--no doubt! She closed her window hurriedly, and began her dressing, trying at the time to collect her thoughts on the subject of these people whom she had come to visit.
Yet neither the talk of her Boston cousins, nor the gossip of the Lewinsons at Florence had left any very clear impression.