Anybody but a critic could have seen it.

And it had long been a distress to my family--including Susy--that the critics should go on making this wearisome mistake, year after year, when there was no foundation for it.

Even when a critic wanted to be particularly friendly and complimentary to me, he didn't dare to go beyond my clothes.

He never ventured beyond that old safe frontier.

When he had finished with my clothes he had said all the kind things, the pleasant things, the complimentary things he could risk.