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From the shining nimbus of her hair to her small tripping feet she was the incarnation of girlhood of that white and gold girlhood which has intoxicated the imagination of man. She shed the allurement of sex as unconsciously as a flower sheds its perfume. Though her eyes were softly veiled by her lashes, every male clerk in Brandywine & Plummer's was dazzled by the deep blue light of her glances.
But still, however good she may be as a witness, Joanna is better; and she, when speaking to the dauphin, calls herself in the Latin report Bergereta. Even Haumette confesses that Joanna tended sheep in her girlhood.
"Do you know," Theodora said meditatively; "I'd rather face the footlights at the Metropolitan than come down this beach at the bathing hour. It makes me feel pigeon-toed in the extreme." Cicely eyed her with a calm lack of comprehension born of healthy girlhood. "I don't see why," she said. "Because you stay in the water, and can't hear the gossip along shore," Theodora answered.
Ferris had noticed that all his countrywomen, past their girlhood, seemed to be sick, he did not know how or why; he supposed it was all right, it was so common. In Mrs. Vervain's case, though she talked a great deal about her ill-health, he had noticed it rather less than usual, she had so great spirit.
The boy had his mother's reddish brown eyes and hair, something of the same colour underlying his fair skin as it did hers. He had the white, even teeth, the flashing and radiant smile. Mary Creagh had been a beautiful girl, with a look of motherliness even in her immature girlhood. As a wife and mother that aspect of her beauty had developed.
For a brief critical moment he remembered the placid, unchanging simplicity of German, and the inflexible and ingrained reserve of English, girlhood, in opposition to this indistinctive cosmopolitan grace. But only for a moment. As soon as she spoke, a certain flavor of individuality seemed to return to her speech. "Confess," she said, "it was a courageous thing for me to do.
She tells us that which might have been expected when she says that she "was early initiated and instructed in the first principles of the Christian religion;" and in after days we find her giving to her son a rule which had proved to be a blessing to her own girlhood "Never to spend more time in any matter of mere recreation in one day, than I spend in private religious duties."
He was struck with the wistful faces of the very young girls eager and wise beyond their years. What an incongruous thing this mingling of the tense eagerness of young girlhood in the straight open stare of worldly wisdom with which some of them looked at him, and, passing, turned to look again. It made him shiver.
Emerson greatly admired Bettina, and Louisa M. Alcott relates that she first made acquaintance with the famous 'Correspondence' when in her girlhood she was left to browse in Emerson's library. Bettina's influence was most keenly felt by the young, and she had the youth of Germany at her feet. She died in 1859.
Now few witnesses are left anywhere of her fair happy childhood, or even of her girlhood, which was like a silvery crescent, holding the dim promise of full-orbed womanhood and Queenhood.