Add to the foregoing that she carried her head as upright as a dart,
in a dashing, spirited, thoroughbred way--that she had a clear voice,
with a ring of the right metal in it, and a smile that began very
prettily in her eyes before it got to her lips--and there behold the
portrait of her, to the best of my painting, as large as life!
And what about her disposition next? Had this charming creature no
faults? She had just as many faults as you have, ma'am--neither more nor
less.
To put it seriously, my dear pretty Miss Rachel, possessing a host
of graces and attractions, had one defect, which strict impartiality
compels me to acknowledge. She was unlike most other girls of her age,
in this--that she had ideas of her own, and was stiff-necked enough to
set the fashions themselves at defiance, if the fashions didn't suit her
views. In trifles, this independence of hers was all well enough; but
in matters of importance, it carried her (as my lady thought, and as I
thought) too far. She judged for herself, as few women of twice her age
judge in general; never asked your advice; never told you beforehand
what she was going to do; never came with secrets and confidences to
anybody, from her mother downwards.
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