Tarrant had an idea that she (Mrs. Tarrant) liked to study people,
and that she was now engaged in an analysis of Miss Chancellor. It
carried her far, and she came out at unexpected times with her results.
It was still her purpose to interpret the world to the ingenious mind of
her daughter, and she translated Miss Chancellor with a confidence which
made little account of the fact that she had seen her but once, while
Verena had this advantage nearly every day. Verena felt that by this
time she knew Olive very well, and her mother's most complicated
versions of motive and temperament (Mrs. Tarrant, with the most
imperfect idea of the meaning of the term, was always talking about
people's temperament) rendered small justice to the phenomena it was now
her privilege to observe in Charles Street. Olive was much more
remarkable than Mrs. Tarrant suspected, remarkable as Mrs. Tarrant
believed her to be. She had opened Verena's eyes to extraordinary
pictures, made the girl believe that she had a heavenly mission, given
her, as we have seen, quite a new measure of the interest of life. These
were larger consequences than the possibility of meeting the leaders of
society at Olive's house.
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