She was beginning to like him for himself, and to forget how very foolish he had seemed to be when he was declaring his passion for her.

But his letter showed him all at once in an entirely new light, and was at once a pleasure and a surprise.

She thought it natural to write him a few words of thanks.
Indeed, it would have seemed rude not to do so.
In the liberty she was enjoying in Bianca's house, she was rapidly forgetting that she was only a young girl, and that society would be shocked if it knew that she was exchanging letters with Gianluca della Spina.

There is nothing which a girl learns so easily and all at once as independence of that social kind.

What grey-haired man of the world has not at one time or another been amazed at the full-grown assurance of some bride of eighteen or nineteen summers?
A month is enough--with proper advantages--to make a drawing-room queen and a society tyrant of a schoolgirl.