sisted
a recognition of material facts they did not repress it. "And if," they
said, "we can succeed in polishing her and toning her, she may have
something to thank us for, in the event of her ultimately making a name."
That event being of course necessary for the development of so proper a
sentiment. Thus the rides with Wilfrid continued, and the sweet quiet
evenings when she sang.

CHAPTER VIII

The windows of Brookfield were thrown open to the air of May, and bees
wandered into the rooms, gold spots of sunshine danced along the floors.
The garden-walks were dazzling, and the ladies went from flower-bed to
flower-bed in broad garden hats that were, as an occasional light glance
flung at a window-pane assured Adela, becoming. Sunshine had burst on
them suddenly, and there was no hat to be found for Emilia, so Wilfrid
placed his gold-laced foraging-cap on her head, and the ladies, after a
moment's misgiving, allowed her to wear it, and turned to observe her now
and then. There was never pertness in Emilia's look, which on the
contrary was singularly large and calm when it reposed: perhaps her
dramatic instinct prompted her half-jaunty manner of leaning against the
sunny corner of the house where the Chinese honeysuckle climbed. She was
talking to Wilfrid. Her laughter seemed careless and easy, and in keeping
with the Southern litheness of her attitude.

"To suit the cap; it's all to suit the cap," said Adela, the keen of eye.
Yet, critical as was this lady, she acknowledged that it was no mere
acting effort to suit the cap.

The philosopher (I would keep him back if I could) bids us mark that the
crown and flower of the nervous system, the head, is necessarily
sensitive, and to that degree that whatsoever we place on it, does, for a
certain period, change and shape us. Of course the instant we call up the
forces of the brain, much of the impression departs but what remains is
powerful, and fine-nerved. Woman is especially subject to it. A girl may
put on her brother's boots, and they will not affect her spirit strongly;
but as soon as she puts on her brother's hat, she gives him a manly nod.
The same philosopher who fathers his dulness on me, asserts that the
modern vice or fastness ('Trotting on the Epicene Border,' he has it) is
bred by apparently harmless practices of this description. He offers to
turn the current of a Republican's brain, by resting a coronet on his
forehead for just five seconds.

Hows