They might have waited for some weeks before returning to the colors of the secular.
She did not know that they felt that they had wasted too much time in sober shades already.

The days are precious in a world in which no really trustworthy hair dye may be bought for money.
And then there came to her a month of coldly inquisitive doubt.

(This was when people had ceased to congratulate her and to talk, the nice ones, of the great cleverness of George Holland; the nasty ones, of the great pity that so delightful a man did not come of a better family.) Why should she begin to ask herself if she really loved George Holland; if the feeling she had for him should be called by the name of love, or by some other name that did not mean just the same thing?
Of course she had thought a good deal--though her father did not know it--of love.

She had seen upon other people the effect of the possession of this gift of love, how it had caused them to forget pain and poverty, and shame, and infamy, and God, and death, and hell.

Ah! that was love--that was love! and she had hoped that one day such a gift of love would be given to her; for it was surely the thing that was best worth having in the world! Once or twice she had fancied that it was at the point of being given to her.