But it was not the possession of these mere externals that made people look twice at Virginia Blaine.  If she had had only beauty there would have been nothing to particularly distinguish her from the many millions of girls to whom Nature has been kind.  Beauty per se has no permanent power to attract.  One soon tires of admiring an inanimate piece of sculpture, no matter how perfectly chiselled.  If a woman lacks intelligence, esprit, temperament, men soon grow weary of her society, even though she have the beauty of a Venus de Medici; whereas, even a plain woman, by sheer force of soul and wit, can attract friends and make the world forget her ugliness.  What made John Blame’s younger daughter an especial favorite was that in her case good looks were allied with brains.  She made friends by her natural charm, her vivacity, her keen intelligence and uncommon strength of character, which, despite her youth, she had exhibited on more than one occasion.  She was a merry-hearted, spirited, independent kind of a girl with decided views of her own regarding right and wrong and with the courage to express them.  As the poet wrote: 

  Her glossy hair was clustered o’er her brow
  Bright with intelligence and fair and smooth;
  Her eyebrow’s shape was the aerial bow,
  Her cheek all purple with the beam of youth
  Mounting, at times, to a transparent glow,
  As if her veins ran lightning.

Two sisters more unlike in character and tastes it would be almost impossible to discover.  Fanny, the elder, lacked not only Virginia’s good looks, and also her brains.  Yet she was good-natured and easy-going, and, as long as she had her own way, managed to get along with everybody.  She went through the lower grades of public school, but did not shine as a particularly bright pupil, evincing little love for books, and shirking study when possible.  Her fondness for amusement and her uncultivated taste also led to her associating habitually with companions beneath her socially.  She was a thoroughly good girl.  A vulgar allusion would have shocked her, an impertinence she would have quickly resented; yet she seemed of a coarser fibre than the rest of the family, the reason for which, seeing that both girls had equal advantages and opportunities, only an expert psychologist could explain.  She had gone through school mechanically as an unpleasant task to be gotten over with as soon as possible, taking no interest in her work, and when she came out her brain was a sluggish and unresponsive as one might expect.  Well aware of her shortcomings, she made light of them, insisting laughingly that she was the dunce of the family and Virginia its genius.  She would do the drudgery of housekeeping while her sister went to college.