The number of new things our young lady looked
out on from the high south window that hung over
the Park this number was so great (though some
of the things were only old ones altered and, as
the phrase was of other matters, done up), that life
at present turned to her view from week to week
more and more the face of a striking and distin
guished stranger. She had reached a great age
for it quite seemed to her that at twenty-five it was
late to reconsider; and her most general sense was
a shade of regret that she had not known earlier.
The world was different whether for worse or for
better from her rudimentary readings, and it gave
her the feeling of a wasted past. If she had only
known sooner she might have arranged herself more
to meet it. She made, at all events, discoveries
every day, some of which were about herself and
others about other persons. Two of these one
under each head more particularly engaged, in
alternation, her anxiety. She saw as she had never
seen before how material things spoke to her. She
saw, and she blushed to see, that if, in contrast with
some of its old aspects, life now affected her as a
dress successfully " done up; this was exactly by
reason of the trimmings and lace, was a matter of
ribbons and silk and velvet. She had a dire acces
sibility to pleasure from such sources. She liked
the charming quarters her aunt had assigned her
liked them literally more than she had in all her
other days liked anything; and nothing could have

[[31]]

p030 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p031w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p032

v?