ticence in their discussions
of the subject than at Miss Blackburne's, where the girls were not at
all high-minded, and talked of their chances with the utmost
frankness, not to say coarseness; but good looks were held to be the
best, if not the only means to the end in both sets. Money and
accomplishments might help, but personal appearance was the great
certainty; and Beth was naturally impressed with this idea like the
rest. Marriage, however, was far from being the distinct object of her
life; in fact, she had no distinct object at all as yet. She had
always meant to do something, or rather to be something; but further
than that she had not got.

Miss Blackburne had paid particular attention to the cultivation of
the speaking voice, and it was from her that Beth had learnt how to
round hers to richness, and modulate it so that its natural sweetness
and charm were greatly enhanced. There was considerable difference of
opinion about her looks. She was always striking in appearance, but
dress, for one thing, altered her very much, and the state of her mind
still more. People who met her on one occasion admired her
exceedingly, and on the next wondered why they had thought her
good-looking at all. She had the mesmeric quality which makes it
impossible to escape observation, and her personality never failed to
interest the intelligent whether it pleased them or not; but she was
only at her best in mind, manner, and appearance when her fitful
further faculty was active; then indeed she shone with a strange
loveliness, a light to be felt rather than seen, and not to be
described at all. At such times the mere physical beauty of other
women went out in her immediate neighbourhood, and was no more thought
of. It was not until she was quite mature, however, that her manner
permanently acquired that subtle indefinable quality called charm,
which is the outcome of a large tolerant nature and kindness of heart.
It was as if she did not come into full possession of her true self
until she had experienced numberless other phases of being common to
the race. Hence the apparently incongruous mixture she presented in
the earlier stages of her youth, her sluggish indifference at times,
her excesses of energy and zeal, her variations of taste.

At first, after she left school, as was inevitable, her
self-discipline was irksome enough at times, and some of the details
she shirked; but not for long, because the time which accustomed
d