Solange had the small, well-rounded, rustic face of a Gothic Madonna, an oldish, infantile air, laughing, wrinkled eyes, a pretty nose, a delicate mouth, a rather heavy chin, fine skin and a ruddy complexion. She liked to discuss serious thoughts in a serious tone, very serious, contrasting comically with her kind, humorous face, which tried hard not to be so; but her words hurried along for fear of losing the thread of her sober ideas; and sometimes she actually did stop in mid-course with a void in her mind: "What was it I meant to say?" Her auditors seldom whispered a reply, for they scarcely listened to her. But she did not irritate them, for Solange was not one of those people who hold forth and insist upon your following their insipid discourse. She had no pride and was ready to apologize affectionately for having bored you. But incapable as she was by nature of grasping an idea, she had a naïve aspiration for thought and an immense good will. Nothing very much came of it: her thoughts never quite arrived. The grave books, Plato, Guyau, Fouillée, yawned at the same page for weeks or months; and the great, beautiful projects, idealistic, altruistic--works of social aid or new systems of education--were intellectual toys that she soon forgot in their corners and under the furniture till the next chance brought them to her attention again. A good little bourgeoise, gentle, amiable, pretty, sensible, well-balanced, with a dash of pedantry, unconstrained, droll, who, without posing, imagined that she had intellectual needs and really had to talk about the ideal and many other things, all on the same plane, calm, tidy, well-dressed, polite, innocent and a nobody.