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James, Henry, 1843-1916

"Roderick Hudson"

She is all one, and all consummately interesting!"
"What does she do--what does she say, that is so remarkable?" Rowland
had asked.
"Say? Sometimes nothing--sometimes everything. She is never the same.
Sometimes she walks in and takes her place without a word, without a
smile, gravely, stiffly, as if it were an awful bore. She hardly looks
at me, and she walks away without even glancing at my work. On other
days she laughs and chatters and asks endless questions, and pours out
the most irresistible nonsense. She is a creature of moods; you can't
count upon her; she keeps observation on the stretch. And then, bless
you, she has seen such a lot! Her talk is full of the oddest allusions!"
"It is altogether a very singular type of young lady," said Rowland,
after the visit which I have related at length. "It may be a charm, but
it is certainly not the orthodox charm of marriageable maidenhood, the
charm of shrinking innocence and soft docility. Our American girls
are accused of being more knowing than any others, and Miss Light is
nominally an American. But it has taken twenty years of Europe to make
her what she is.


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