But after a moment we
shall perceive that if at nineteen Pansy has become a young lady she
doesn't really fill out the part; that if she has grown very pretty
she lacks in a deplorable degree the quality known and esteemed in the
appearance of females as style; and that if she is dressed with
great freshness she wears her smart attire with an undisguised
appearance of saving it-very much as if it were lent her for the
occasion. Edward Rosier, it would seem, would have been just the man
to note these defects; and in point of fact there was not a quality of
this young lady, of any sort, that he had not noted. Only he called
her qualities by names of his own-some of which indeed were happy
enough. "No, she's unique-she's absolutely unique," he used to say
to himself; and you may be sure that not for an instant would he
have admitted to you that she was wanting in style. Style? Why, she
had the style of a little princess; if you couldn't see it you had
no eye. It was not modern, it was not conscious, it would produce no
impression in Broadway; the small, serious damsel, in her stiff little
dress, only looked like an Infanta of Velasquez.
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