“To suit the cap; it’s all to suit the cap,” said Adela, the keen of eye.  Yet, critical as was this lady, she acknowledged that it was no mere acting effort to suit the cap.

The philosopher (I would keep him back if I could) bids us mark that the crown and flower of the nervous system, the head, is necessarily sensitive, and to that degree that whatsoever we place on it, does, for a certain period, change and shape us.  Of course the instant we call up the forces of the brain, much of the impression departs but what remains is powerful, and fine-nerved.  Woman is especially subject to it.  A girl may put on her brother’s boots, and they will not affect her spirit strongly; but as soon as she puts on her brother’s hat, she gives him a manly nod.  The same philosopher who fathers his dulness on me, asserts that the modern vice or fastness (’Trotting on the Epicene Border,’ he has it) is bred by apparently harmless practices of this description.  He offers to turn the current of a Republican’s brain, by resting a coronet on his forehead for just five seconds.

Howsoever these things be, it was true that Emilia’s feet presently crossed, and she was soon to be seen with her right elbow doubled against her head as she leaned to the wall, and the little left fist stuck at her belt.  And I maintain that she had no sense at all of acting Spanish prince disguised as page.  Nor had she an idea that she was making her friend Wilfrid’s heart perform to her lightest words and actions, like any trained milk-white steed in a circus.  Sunlight, as well as Wilfrid’s braided cap, had some magical influence on her.  He assured her that she looked a charming boy, and she said, “Do I?” just lifting her chin.

A gardener was shaving the lawn.

“Please, spare those daisies,” cried Emilia.  “Why do you cut away daisies?”

The gardener objected that he really must make the lawn smooth.  Emilia called to Adela, who came, and hearing the case, said:  “Now this is nice of you.  I like you to love daisies and wish to protect them.  They disfigure a lawn, you know.”  And Adela stooped, and picked one, and called it a pet name, and dropped it.

She returned to her sisters in the conservatory, and meeting Mr. Barren at the door, made the incident a topic.  “You know how greatly our Emilia rejoices us when she shows sentiment, and our thirst is to direct her to appreciate Nature in its humility as well as its grandeur.”

“One expects her to have all poetical feelings,” said Mr. Barrett, while they walked forth to the lawn sloping to the tufted park grass.

Cornelia said:  “You have read Mr. Runningbrook’s story?”

“Yes.”

But the man had not brought it back, and her name was in it, written with her own hand.

“Are you of my opinion in the matter?”

“In the matter of the style?  I am and I am not.  Your condemnation may be correct in itself; but you say, ‘He coins words’; and he certainly forces the phrase here and there, I must admit.  The point to be considered is, whether friction demands a perfectly smooth surface.  Undoubtedly a scientific work does, and a philosophical treatise should.  When we ask for facts simply, we feel the intrusion of a style.  Of fiction it is part.  In the one case the classical robe, in the other any mediaeval phantasy of clothing.”