But as she thought of doing it--_how_ she would do it, and how he might possibly accept it--she was torn with misery.
She and her girl-friend Pamela were very different.

She was the elder by a couple of years, and much more mature.

But Pamela's undeveloped powers, the flashes of daring, of romance, in the awkward reserved girl, the suggestion in her of a big and splendid flowering, fascinated Beryl, and in her humility she never dreamt that she, with her delicate pensiveness, the mingled subtlety and purity of her nature, was no less exceptional.

She had been brought up very much alone.

Her mother was no companion for her, and the brother nearest her own age and nearest her heart had been killed at the opening of the war.