She will be a useful ferment, I fancy.

How strange it is always--this abrupt leap of the girl into the heritage of womanhood.

The boy matures slowly, by imperceptible gradations.

Now Leila seems to me years older than John, and the change is really somewhat startling; but then I have seen very little of young women.

There is the girl, the maid, the woman." "Oh, but there is boy, lad, and man." "Not comparable, Squire; continuously growing in one case, and in the other developmental surprises and, ever after, fall and rise of energy.
The general trouble about understanding women is that men judge them by some one well-known woman.