nature made inevitable.

Miriam looked very cold, very severe, very English, by the side of
this brilliant girl. The thinness and pallor of her features became
more noticeable; the provincial faults of her dress were painfully
obvious. Cecily was not robust, but her form lacked no development
appropriate to her years, and its beauty was displayed by Parisian
handiwork. In this respect, too, she had changed remarkably since
Miriam last saw her, when she was such a frail child. Her hair of
dark gold showed itself beneath a hat which Eleanor Spence kept
regarding with frank admiration, so novel it was in style, and so
perfectly suitable to its wearer. Her gloves, her shoes, were no
less perfect; from head to foot nothing was to be found that did not
become her, that was not faultless in its kind.

At the same time, nothing that suggested idle expense or vanity. To
dwell at all upon the subject would be a disproportion, but for the
note of contrast that was struck. In an assembly of well-dressed
people, no one would have remarked Cecily's attire, unless to praise
its quiet distinction. In the Spences' sitting-room it became
another matter; it gave emphasis to differences of character; it
distinguished the atmosphere of Cecily's life from that breathed by
her old friends.

"We are going to read together Goethe's 'Italienische Reise,'"
continued Mrs. Lessingham. "It was of quite infinite value to me
when I first was here. In each town I _tuned_ my thoughts by it, to
use a phrase which sounds like affectation, but has a very real
significance."