Her pulses did not quicken easily.

She had imagination, but she did not make herself the heroine of her dreams.

She was sincerely puzzled at the expression which she saw on the faces of some girls when talking with young men.
She felt a vague shame and anger because of it, but she did not know what it meant.

She had read novels, but the love interest in them was like a musical theme which she, hearing, did not fully understand.
She was not in the least a boylike girl; she was wholly feminine, but the feminine element was held in delicate and gentle restraint.
Without doubt Mrs.Wilton's old-fashioned gentility, and Miss Pamela's, and her governess's, who belonged to the same epoch, had served to mould her character not altogether undesirably.

She was, on the whole, a pleasant and surprising contrast to girls of her age, with her pretty, shy respect for her elders, and lack of self-assertion, along with entire self-possession and good breeding.
However, she had missed many things which poor Miss Farrel had considered desirable for her, and which her hostesses with their self-sanctified evasion had led her to think had been done.
Miss Farrel, teaching in her country school, had had visions of the girl riding a thoroughbred in Central Park, with a groom in attendance; whereas the reality was the old man who served both as coachman and butler, in carefully kept livery, guiding two horses apt to stumble from extreme age through the shopping district, and the pretty face of the girl looking out of the window of an ancient coupe which, nevertheless, had a coat of arms upon its door.