Out Of The Question. William Dean Howells

      Maggie: "Everything! In the first place she's go refined and cultivated, you can't live; and then she takes your breath away, she's so perfectly lovely; and then she kills you dead with her style, and all that. She isn't the least stiff. She's the kindest to other people you ever saw, and the carefullest of their feelings; and she has the grandest principles, and she's divinely impulsive! But somehow you feel that if you do anything that's a little vulgar in her presence, you'd better die at once. It was always so at school, and it always will be. Why you would no more dare to do or say anything just a little common, don't you know with Leslie Bellingham" — A young lady, tall, slender, and with an air of delicate distinction, has appeared at the door of the parlor. She is of that type of beauty which approaches the English, without losing the American fineness and grace; she is fair, and her eyes are rather gray than blue; her nose is slightly aquiline; her expression is serious, but becomes amused as she listens to Miss Wallace. She wears one of those blonde traveling-costumes, whose general fashionableness she somehow subdues into character with herself; over her arm she carries a shawl. She drifts lightly into the room. At the rustling of her dress Miss Wallace looks up, and with a cry of surprise and ecstasy springs from her chair, scattering the contents of her work-box in every direction over the floor, and flings herself into Miss Leslie Bellingham's embrace. Then she starts away from her and gazes rapturously into her face, while they prettily clasp hands and hold each other at arm's length: "Leslie! You heard every word!"