She tried to make herself stop.
The girl's face was turned to the out-of-doors; to a great tree in front of the window, a tree in which some robins had built their nests.
Such a tired face! So many tear marks, and so much less reachable than tear stains.
A beautiful face, too.

If all were back which the blow at the center had struck away, if she had all of her--if lighted--it would be a rarely beautiful face.
The girl was like a flower; a flower, it seemed to Kate, which had not been planted in the right place.

The gardener had been unwise in his selection of a place for this flower; perhaps he had not used the right kind of soil, perhaps he had put it in the full heat of the sun when it was a flower to have more shade; perhaps too much wind or too much rain--Katie wondered just what the mistake had been.

For the flower would have been so lovely had the gardener not made those mistakes.
Even now, it was lovely: lovely with a saddening loveliness, for one saw at a glance how easily a breeze too rough could beat it down.

And one knew there had been those breezes.