In appearance she was tall, handsome, and imperial-looking, with a bright and open expression of countenance. Her disposition was upright, proud, honourable, and averse to everything mean. In conversation she was clever, quick-witted, lively, and pleasant. And as, furthermore, she was endowed with great social talent and a remarkable knack of pleasing all with whom she came in contact, she won hearts right and left, and was considered charming wherever she went. She was, however, far from faultless. The germ of worldliness, which inevitably creeps into an education amongst fashionable people, had begun to develop itself, and to taint her nature; and the conclave in her father's housekeeper's room had certainly not erred in attributing to her pride and ambition. So marked was her inclination to haughtiness that, when first I knew her, it sometimes puzzled me why she should take the trouble she did to make herself universally agreeable--even to people for whom she did not care, from whom there was nothing to be gained in return, and who were nobodies in her estimation. As, however, I came to understand her better, I discovered the key to this enigma, and perceived that she was actuated--whether consciously or only instinctively I do not know--by a strong desire for two things which seemed almost as indispensable to her as the air she breathed. These two things were popularity and power, and without them she was never really happy. Her frank genial manner was well adapted to make people believe her to be an unreserved, easily-read individual; but the more attentively I studied her, the less inclined did I feel to think that impression a correct one. I had doubts whether she ever showed much of her real self; whether there were not recesses, of unsuspected depth, hidden within her where no mortal eye could penetrate; and whether she did not often make use of unreserve as a mask to conceal its opposite. The possibility of this made her all the more attractive to me. Curiosity as to what might lie beneath the surface she presented to the world, served to increase the drawing towards her that I had always felt; and had I been so placed as to have a chance of making friends with her, I should certainly have tried to do so. But it was, as I well knew, hopeless to attempt such a thing in my present position; for she was not the sort of girl to condescend to familiar intercourse with social inferiors, and in her eyes I was simply a maid. Under the circumstances, it would obviously be ridiculous if I were to let myself become fond of her, and I resolved firmly not to be guilty of any sentimental folly of the kind. Yet, in spite of this prudent resolution, I must confess that I sometimes had hard work not to yield to the indefinable charm which she had for me; and had she vouchsafed me any special marks of favour, I am afraid I should inevitably have made a fool of myself, and become romantically devoted to her.