The roads about Gardencourt were so firm, even in the worst
weather, that the two ladies always came back with a healthy glow in
their cheeks, looking at the soles of their neat, stout boots and
declaring that their walk had done them inexpressible good. Before
luncheon, always, Madame Merle was engaged; Isabel admired and
envied her rigid possession of her morning. Our heroine had always
passed for a person of resources and had taken a certain pride in
being one; but she wandered, as by the wrong side of the wall of a
private garden, round the enclosed talents, accomplishments, aptitudes
of Madame Merle. She found herself desiring to emulate them, and in
twenty such ways this lady presented herself as a model. "I should
like awfully to be so!" Isabel secretly exclaimed, more than once,
as one after another of her friend's fine aspects caught the light,
and before long she knew that she had learned a lesson from a high
authority. It took no great time indeed for her to feel herself, as
the phrase is, under an influence. "What's the harm," she wondered,
"so long as it's a good one? The more one's under a good influence the
better. The only thing is to see our steps as we take them- to
understand them as we go.
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