In the year that Joyce had been away from her she had been in her thoughts oftener as that quaint little creature of eight, than the sixteen-year old school girl she had grown into.
Phil, too, accustomed to thinking of Mary as he had known her at the Wigwam, could hardly believe he saw aright, when the train pulled in and she flew down the steps to throw her arms around Joyce.

It was the same, lovable, eager little face that looked up into his, the same impetuous unspoiled child, yet a second glance left him puzzled.

There was some intangible change he could not label, and it interested him to try to analyze it.
She was taller, of course, almost as tall as Joyce, with skirts almost as long, but it was not that which impressed him with the sense of change.

It was a certain girlish winsomeness, something elusive, which cannot be defined, but which lends a charm like nothing else in all the world to the sweet unfolding of early maidenhood.
If Phil had been asked to describe the girl that Mary would grow into, he never would have pictured this development.

He expected her desert experiences to give her a strong forceful character.