She could see the difference between Mr.
Gracie and Mr. Burrage; her being bored by Mrs. Tarrant's attempting to
point it out is perhaps a proof of that. It was a curious incident of
her zeal for the regeneration of her sex that manly things were, perhaps
on the whole, what she understood best. Mr. Burrage was rather a
handsome youth, with a laughing, clever face, a certain sumptuosity of
apparel, an air of belonging to the "fast set"--a precocious,
good-natured man of the world, curious of new sensations and containing,
perhaps, the making of a _dilettante_. Being, doubtless, a little
ambitious, and liking to flatter himself that he appreciated worth in
lowly forms, he had associated himself with the ruder but at the same
time acuter personality of a genuine son of New England, who had a
harder head than his own and a humour in reality more cynical, and who,
having earlier knowledge of the Tarrants, had undertaken to show him
something indigenous and curious, possibly even fascinating. Mr. Gracie
was short, with a big head; he wore eye-glasses, looked unkempt, almost
rustic, and said good things with his ugly lips. Verena had replies for
a good many of them, and a pretty colour came into her face as she
talked.
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