It was
also curious that this change, though it must have been accompanied
by some emotion, was just as often not attended by any other sign of
it. Clara was, in fact, little given to any display of feeling.
Madge, four years younger than her sister, was of a different type
altogether, and one more easily comprehended. She had very heavy
dark hair, and she had blue eyes, a combination which fascinated
Fenmarket. Fenmarket admired Madge more than it was admired by her
in return, and she kept herself very much to herself, notwithstanding
what it considered to be its temptations. If she went shopping she
nearly always went with her sister; she stood aloof from all the
small gaieties of the town; walked swiftly through its streets, and
repelled, frigidly and decisively, all offers, and they were not a
few, which had been made to her by the sons of the Fenmarket
tradesfolk. Fenmarket pronounced her 'stuck-up,' and having thus
labelled her, considered it had exhausted her. The very important
question, Whether there was anything which naturally stuck up?
Fenmarket never asked. It was a great relief to that provincial
little town in 1844, in this and in other cases, to find a word which
released it from further mental effort and put out of sight any
troublesome, straggling, indefinable qualities which it would
otherwise have been forced to examine and name.
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