“Scarcely feminine enough, perhaps,” resumed Lady Eleanor,—“the features too bold, the expression too decided; but this may have been the fault of a social tone, which required everything in exaggeration, and would tolerate nothing save in excess.”
“Yes, mamma,” said Helen, vaguely assenting to a remark she had not attended to.
“I never fancied that style, either in beauty or in manner,” continued Lady Eleanor. “It wants, in the first place, the great element of pleasing; it is not natural.”
“No, mamma!” rejoined Helen, mechanically as before.
“Besides,” continued Lady Eleanor, gratified at her daughter's ready assent, “for one person to whom these mannerisms are becoming, there are at least a hundred slavish imitators ready to adopt without taste, and follow without discrimination. Now, Miss Daly was the fashion once. Who can say to what heresies she has given origin, to what absurdities in dress, in manner, and in bearing?”
Helen smiled, and nodded an acquiescence without knowing to what.
“There is one evil attendant on all this,” said Lady Eleanor, who, with the merciless ingenuity of a thorough poser, went on ratiocinating from her own thoughts; “one can rarely rely upon even the kindest intentions of people of this sort, so often are their best offices but mere passing, fitful impulses; don't you think so?”
“Yes, mamma,” said Helen, roused by this sudden appeal to a more than usual acquiescence, while totally ignorant as to what.
“Then, they have seldom any discretion, even when they mean well.”
“No, mamma.”