Her beauty had made a great impression upon the whole amiable family, as good looks often do upon people who cannot boast of the same advantages.

It was a good thing that the girl had no vanity in her character, for her charms were continually brought before her in the household.

Her pet name was "Beauty," and Colonel Meredith was fond of dilating upon her attractions of person wherever he went.
Cecil, a boy of sixteen, was completely her slave, and considered himself the victim of a hopeless passion; while the girls vied with each other in their love and adulation of their friend, so Valmai led at least an outwardly calm and happy life.

Her character had developed rapidly during the last two years, and she found herself, to her own surprise, possessed of a power of repression and a control over her emotions which she would have thought impossible a few years earlier.
The memory of Cardo, the glamour of their rural courtship, the bliss of their honeymoon, his departure and her subsequent sorrows, were kept locked in the deepest recesses of her soul, and only recalled during the silent hours of the night.

She had become less impatient of the stripes of sorrow; she had taken the "angel of suffering" to her heart with meek resignation, endeavouring to make of her a friend instead of an enemy, and she reaped the harvest always garnered by patience and humility.