His high-topped boots were polished till they shone, and his broad-rimmed hat, of soft beaver, was surmounted by a flowing plume.
Even I, who had no especial taste nor love for masculine beauty, felt my sense of the beautiful strongly moved by the attractive picture my new-found friend presented.

His dress, manner, and bearing, polished by the friction of life at a luxurious court, must have appeared god-like to Dorothy.

She had never travelled farther from home than Buxton and Derby-town, and had met only the half-rustic men belonging to the surrounding gentry and nobility of Derbyshire, Nottingham, and Stafford.
She had met but few even of them, and their lives had been spent chiefly in drinking, hunting, and gambling--accomplishments that do not fine down the texture of a man's nature or fit him for a lady's bower.

Sir John Manners was a revelation to Dorothy; and she, poor girl, was bewildered and bewitched by him.
When John had mounted and was moving away, he looked up to the window where Dorothy stood, and a light came to her eyes and a smile to her face which no man who knows the sum of two and two can ever mistake if he but once sees it.
When I saw the light in Dorothy's eyes, I knew that all the hatred that was ever born from all the feuds that had ever lived since the quarrelling race of man began its feuds in Eden could not make Dorothy Vernon hate the son of her father's enemy.
"I was--was--watching him draw smoke through the--the little stick which he holds in his mouth, and--and blow it out again," said Dorothy, in explanation of her attitude.

She blushed painfully and continued, "I hope you do not think--" "I do not think," I answered.