Lydia was in the sixth form—she was a prefect—she was Head of the School.
At seventeen she discovered that she had ceased to grow. She had attained to her full height, and after all, it was not the outrageous stature that had been prophesied for her. Only five feet eight inches, and her slimness, and the smallness of her bones, made her look less tall.
Her thick, brown hair was in one plait now, doubled under and tied with a black ribbon, and her skirts reached down to her slender ankles.
Lydia still had doubts as to her own claims to beauty, and envied Nathalie Palmer her bright, Devonshire complexion and blue eyes.
“Should you say I was at all pretty, Nathalie?”
“Your eyes are lovely.”
“That’s what people always say about plain girls,” said Lydia disgustedly.
“You look sort of foreign, and interesting,” said Nathalie thoughtfully. “The shape of your face is quite different to anyone else’s.”
It did not sound reassuring, and Lydia touched with the tips of her fingers the salient cheek bones that gave an odd hint of Mongolianism to her small olive-hued face.
“Your mouth is pretty, it’s so red,” said Nathalie. “Though I should like it better if your teeth didn’t slope inwards.”