Page:The Portrait of a Lady (1882).djvu/51

43 THE PORTRAIT OF A LADY. 43 own conduct. Her life should always be in harmony with the most pleasing impression she should produce ; she would be what she appeared, and she would appear what she was. Sometimes she went so far as to wish that she should find herself some day in a difficult position, so that she might have the pleasure of being as heroic as the occasion demanded. Altogether, with her meagre knowledge, her inflated ideals, her confidence at once innocent and dogmatic, her temper at once exacting and indulg- ent, her mixture of curiosity and fastidiousness, of vivacity and indifference, her desire to look very well and to be if possible even better ; her determination to see, to try, to know ; her combination of the delicate, desultory, flame-like spirit and the eager and personal young girl ; she would be an easy victim of scientific criticism, if she were not intended to awaken on the reader's part an impulse more tender and more purely expectant. It was one of her theories that Isabel Archer was very fortun- ate in being independent, and that she ought to make some very enlightened use of her independence. She never called it lone- liness; she thought that weak ; and besides, her "sister Lily con- stantly urged her to come and stay with her. She had a friend whose acquaintance she had made shortly before her father's death, who offered so laudable an example of useful activity that Isabel always thought of her as a model. Henrietta Stackpole had the advantage of a remarkable talent ; she was thoroughly launched in journalism, and her letters to the Interviewer ', from Washington, Newport, the "White Mountains, and other places, were universally admired. Isabel did not accept them unrestrict- edly, but she esteemed the courage, energy, and good-huinour of her friend, who, without parents and without property, had adopted three of the children of an infirm and widowed sister, and was paying their school-bills out of the proceeds of her literary labour. Henrietta was a great radical, and had clear-cut views on most subjects; her cherished desire had long been to come to Europe and write a series of letters to the Interviewer from the radical point of view an enterprise the less difficult as she knew perfectly in advance what her opinions would be, and to how many olyjections most European .institutions lay open. When she heard* hat Isabel was coming, she wished to start at once ; thinking, naturally, that it would be delightful the two should travel together. She had been obliged, however, to post- pone this enterprise. She thought Isabel a glorious creature, and had spoken of her, covertly, in some of her letters, though she never mentioned the fact to her friend, who would not have taken pleasure in it and was not a regular reader of the Inter-