How well the child had been taught, said our admiring young woman; how prettily she had been directed and fashioned; and yet how simple, how natural, how innocent she had been kept! Isabel was fond, ever, of the question of character and quality, of sounding, as who should say, the deep personal mystery, and it had pleased her, up to this time, to be in doubt as to whether this tender slip were not really all-knowing.

Was the extremity of her candour but the perfection of self-consciousness?
Was it put on to please her father's visitor, or was it the direct expression of an unspotted nature?
The hour that Isabel spent in Mr.Osmond's beautiful empty, dusky rooms--the windows had been half-darkened, to keep out the heat, and here and there, through an easy crevice, the splendid summer day peeped in, lighting a gleam of faded colour or tarnished gilt in the rich gloom--her interview with the daughter of the house, I say, effectually settled this question.

Pansy was really a blank page, a pure white surface, successfully kept so; she had neither art, nor guile, nor temper, nor talent--only two or three small exquisite instincts: for knowing a friend, for avoiding a mistake, for taking care of an old toy or a new frock.

Yet to be so tender was to be touching withal, and she could be felt as an easy victim of fate.

She would have no will, no power to resist, no sense of her own importance; she would easily be mystified, easily crushed: her force would be all in knowing when and where to cling.