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too; but its fashion was so different from her sister’s—so
much more flowing and becoming—it looked as stylish as
the other’s looked puritanical.
In each of the sisters there was one trait of the mother—and
only one; the thin and pallid elder daughter had
her parent’s Cairngorm eye: the blooming and luxuriant
younger girl had her contour of jaw and chin—perhaps a little
softened, but still imparting an indescribable hardness
to the countenance otherwise so voluptuous and buxom.
Both ladies, as I advanced, rose to welcome me, and both
addressed me by the name of ‘Miss Eyre.’ Eliza’s greeting was
delivered in a short, abrupt voice, without a smile; and then
she sat down again, fixed her eyes on the fire, and seemed
to forget me. Georgiana added to her ‘How d’ye do?’ several
commonplaces about my journey, the weather, and so on,
uttered in rather a drawling tone: and accompanied by sundry
side-glances that measured me from head to foot—now
traversing the folds of my drab merino pelisse, and now lingering
on the plain trimming of my cottage bonnet. Young
ladies have a remarkable way of letting you know that they
think you a ‘quiz’ without actually saying the words. A
certain superciliousness of look, coolness of manner, nonchalance
of tone, express fully their sentiments on the point,
without committing them by any positive rudeness in word
or deed.
A sneer, however, whether covert or open, had now no
longer that power over me it once possessed: as I sat between
my cousins, I was surprised to find how easy I felt
under the total neglect of the one and the semi-sarcastic at-
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Jane Eyre