He began to note vaguely that her dresses were better, and oftener changed, than they had been at Mallowe.

A more observant man might have been touched by the suggestion that she was unfolding petal by petal like a flower, and that each carefully chosen costume was a new petal.

He did not in the least suspect the reverent eagerness of her care of herself as an object hoping to render itself worthy of his qualities and tastes.
His qualities and tastes were of no exalted importance in themselves, but they seemed so to Emily.

It is that which by one chance or another so commends itself to a creature as to incite it to the emotion called love, which is really of importance, and which, not speaking in figures, holds the power of life and death.

Personality sometimes achieves this, circumstances always aid it; but in all cases the result is the same and sways the world it exists in--during its existence.