In her still dwelt that wellspring of healthy vitality, which always, under all circumstances, responds more or less to the influence of the cheerful morning, the stainless childhood, of the day.
No wonder the "reading man" who had been so insensible to the picturesque in nature, turned his weary eyes to look after her, or that a bevy of freshmen, rushing wildly out of chapel, with their surplices flying behind them like a flock of white--geese ?--should have stopped to stare, a little more persistently than gentlemen ought, at the solitary lady, who was walking where she had a perfect right to walk, and at an hour when she could scarcely be suspected of promenading either to observe or to attract observation.

But Christian went right on, with perfect composure.

She knew she was handsome, for she had been told so once; but the knowledge had afterward become only pain.

Now, she was indifferent to her looks--at least as indifferent as any womanly woman ever can be, or ought to be.

Still, it vexed her a little that these young men should presume to stare, and she was glad she was not walking in Saint Bede's, and that they were not the men of her own college.
For already she began to appropriate "our college"-- those old walls, under the shadow of which all her future life must pass.