She did not see the "Cottage" then, with its flowers and vines, and nicely shaven lawn, for her back was to it; nor the handsome grounds, where the shadows from the tall trees fall so softly upon the velvet grass; and the winding graveled walks, which intersect each other and give an impression of greater space than a closer investigation will warrant.
"I can't stay here," was Ethie's thought, as it had been the thought of many others, when, like her, they first step into the matted hall and meet the wet, damp odor, as of sheets just washed, which seems to be inseparable from that part of the building.
But that was the first day, and before she had met the kindness and sympathy of those whose business it is to care for the patients, or felt the influences for good, the tendency to all the better impulses of our nature, which seems to pervade the very atmosphere of Clifton.

Ethie felt this influence very soon, and her second letter to Aunt Barbara was filled with praise of Clifton, where she had made so many friends, in spite of her evident desire to avoid society and stay by herself.

She had passed through the usual ordeal attending the advent of every new face, especially if that face be a little out of the common order of faces.

She had been inspected in the dining room, and bathroom, and chapel, both when she went in and when she went out.

She had been talked up and criticised from the way she wore her hair to the hang of her skirts, which here, as well as in Olney, trailed the floor with a sweep unmistakably aristocratic and stamped her as somebody.