His fingers had turned listlessly the leaves of school-catalogues, the SERMONS of Dr.Crammer, the POEMS of Henry Kirke White, the LAYS OF THE SANCTUARY and LIVES OF CELEBRATED WOMEN.

His fancy, and it was a nervously active one, had gone over the partings and greetings that must have taken place here, and wondered why the apartment had yet caught so little of the flavor of humanity; indeed, I am afraid he had almost forgotten the object of his visit when the door opened, and Carry Tretherick stood before him.
It was one of those faces he had seen the night before, prettier even than it had seemed then; and yet I think he was conscious of some disappointment, without knowing exactly why.

Her abundant waving hair was of a guinea-golden tint, her complexion of a peculiar flowerlike delicacy, her brown eyes of the color of seaweed in deep water.

It certainly was not her beauty that disappointed him.
Without possessing his sensitiveness to impression, Carry was, on her part, quite as vaguely ill at ease.

She saw before her one of those men whom the sex would vaguely generalize as "nice," that is to say, correct in all the superficial appointments of style, dress, manners, and feature.