ginning. She had very
broad, low, and level brows, which seemed even lower because her warm
yellow hair clustered down to her eyebrows; and she had a face just
plump enough not to look as powerful as it was. Anything that was heavy
in all this was abruptly lightened by two large, light china-blue eyes,
lightened all of a sudden as if it had been lifted into the air by two
big blue butterflies. The rest of her was less than middle-sized, and
was of a casual and comfortable sort; and she had this difference from
such girls as the girl in the motor-car, that one did not incline to
take in her figure at all, but only her broad and leonine and innocent
head.

Both the father and the daughter were of the sort that would normally
have avoided all observation; that is, all observation in that
extraordinary modern world which calls out everything except strength.
Both of them had strength below the surface; they were like quiet
peasants owning enormous and unquarried mines. The father with his
square face and grey side whiskers, the daughter with her square face
and golden fringe of hair, were both stronger than they know; stronger
than anyone knew. The father believed in civilization, in the storied
tower we have erected to affront nature; that is, the father believed in
Man. The daughter believed in God; and was even stronger. They neither
of them believed in themselves; for that is a decadent weakness.

The daughter was called a devotee. She left upon ordinary people the
impression--the somewhat irritating impression--produced by such a
person; it can only be described as the sense of strong water being
perpetually poured into some abyss. She did her housework easily; she
achieved her social relations sweetly; she was never neglectful and
never unkind. This accounted for all that was soft in her, but not for
all that was hard. She trod firmly as if going somewhere; she flung her
face back as if defying something; she hardly spoke a cross word, yet
there was often battle in her eyes. The modern man asked doubtfully
where all this silent energy went to. He would have stared still more
doubtfully if he had been told that it all went into her prayers.

The conventions of the Isle of St. Loup were necessarily a compromise
or confusion between those of France and England; and it was vaguely
possible for a respectable young lady to have half-attached lovers, in a
way that would be impossible to the _bourgeoisie_ of France. One man