looked like this, though she
knew that it was the way she sometimes felt. How had Gerald known she
ever felt like this?

That she was a person who ate well, slept well, felt well, loved fun,
was giving and gay--that was all most people knew, or were entitled to
know, of her; all she knew of herself a good deal of the time. Such
things could never be the whole of any person, of course. Every one has
had something to overcome. Some persons have had to overcome and
overcome and overcome, one thing after another, one thing after another,
that has tried to drag and keep them down. She had had--probably
because, as her mother often told her, she was born with such a lot of
the devil in her--a great many trials sent to her, for her discipline,
no doubt, her cleansing; but she had come out of them still unreduced,
still eager for a good time.

All persons are made up, in a way, of these experiences of the past, but
they don't expose them in their faces, they forget them as much as they
can.

Yes, as much as they can. How much is that? The only true sorrows being
involved with one's affections, and the objects of one's love never far
from one's thoughts, how much could a person be said to forget her
sorrows, really?

Aurora reflected upon this for some time, staring the while at her
portrait. The face looking back from the canvas was very like her, had
she but known it, at this exact moment, while the thoughts produced, the
memories wakened, by it substituted for her ordinary hardiness the
delicate look of a capacity for pain.

As she gazed at the portrait longer she liked it better; from minute to
minute she became more reconciled, and found herself finally almost
attracted. Something from it penetrated her for which she had no
definition. It was perhaps the dignity of humanity confronting her in
that strong and simple face framed by the kerchief, like a woman of the
people's,--her own face, but not certainly as she saw it in the mirror;
a humanity that out of the common materials offered to it day by day had
rejected all that was mean and contrived to build up nobleness.

Half perceiving that this portrait in its different way flattered her as
much if not more than the portrait down-stairs, she, while modestly
refusing to be fooled by the compliment, yet felt a motion of
affectionate gratitude toward Gerald for the sympathy which had enabled
him to pierce beneath the surface and see that Bouncing Betsy had her
feelings