That, no doubt, I shall always do. I needn't
be afraid of becoming too pliable; isn't it my fault that I'm not
pliable enough?" It is said that imitation is the sincerest
flattery; and if Isabel was sometimes moved to gape at her friend
aspiringly and despairingly it was not so much because she desired
herself to shine as because she wished to hold up the lamp for
Madame Merle. She liked her extremely, but was even more dazzled
than attracted. She sometimes asked herself what Henrietta Stackpole
would say to her thinking so much of this perverted product of their
common soil, and had a conviction that it would be severely judged.
Henrietta would not at all subscribe to Madame Merle; for reasons
she could not have defined this truth came home to the girl. On the
other hand she was equally sure that, should the occasion offer, her
new friend would strike off some happy view of her old: Madame Merle
was too humorous, too observant, not to do justice to Henrietta, and
on becoming acquainted with her would probably give the measure of a
tact which Miss Stackpole couldn't hope to emulate. She appeared to
have in her experience a touchstone for everything, and somewhere in
the capacious pocket of her genial memory she would find the key to
Henrietta's value.
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