They appeared almost directly, the Contessa in grey with a grey veil and Aurora dressed in a lighter shade, the thick plaits of her auburn hair tied up short below her round straw hat, on the theory that she was still a school-girl, whose skirt must not quite touch the ground, who ought not to wear a veil, and whose mind was supposed to be a sensitive blank, particularly apt to receive bad impressions rather than good ones.

In less than a year she would be dancing all night with men she had scarcely heard of before, listening to compliments of which she had never dreamt--of course not--and to declarations which no right-minded girl one day under eighteen could under any circumstances be thought to expect.

Such miracles as these are wrought by the eighteenth birthday.
Corbario's eyes looked from the mother to the daughter, as he and Marcello stood on the pavement to let them get in.

The Contessa touched his outstretched hand without restraint but without cordiality, smiling just as much as was civil, and less readily than would have been friendly.

Aurora glanced at him and laughed prettily without any apparent reason, which is the privilege of very young girls, because their minds are supposed to be a blank.