To all the more eminent persons in that group Miss Bretherton had been six months before an ignorant and provincial beauty, good enough to create a social craze, and nothing more.

Their presence round her at this moment, their homage, the emotion visible everywhere, proved that all was different, that she had passed the barrier which once existed between her and the world which knows and thinks, and had been drawn within that circle of individualities which, however undefined, is still the vital circle of any time or society, for it is the circle which represents, more or less brilliantly and efficiently, the intellectual life of a generation.
Only one thing was unchanged--the sweetness and spontaneity of that rich womanly nature.

She gave a little cry as she saw Madame de Chateauvieux enter.

She came running forward, and threw her arms round the elder woman and kissed her; it was almost the greeting of a daughter to a mother.

And then, still holding Madame de Chateauvieux with one hand, she held out the other to Paul, asking him how much fault he had to find, and when she was to take her scolding; and every gesture had a glow of youth and joy in it, of which the contagion was irresistible.