She was one of those young ladies
who seem born mistresses of the art of self-defense. Deriving the art
not from experience, but from instinct, they are as adroit at
seventeen as they are at twenty-seven; so a last year's bird
constructs her first nest as cunningly as can a veteran feathered
architect.
Therefore, without a grain of discourtesy or tangible ill-temper, she
quietly froze, and a small family with her, they could not tell how or
why, for they had never even suspected this girl's power. You would
have seemed to them as one that mocketh had you told them they owed
their gayety, their good-humor, their happiness, and their
conversational powers to her.
Of these Talboys suffered the most. She brought him to a stand-still
by a very simple process. She no longer patted or spurred him. To vary
the metaphor, a man that has no current must be stirred or stagnate;
Lucy's light hand stirred Talboys no more; Talboys stagnated. Mr.
Fountain suffered next in proportion. He began to find that something
was the matter, but what he had no idea. He did not observe that,
though Lucy answered him as kindly as ever, she did not draw him out
as heretofore, far less that she was vexed with him, and on her guard
against him and everybody, like a _maitresse d'armes._ No. "The
days were drawing in. The air was heavy; no carbon in it. Wind in the
east again!!!" etc. So subtle is the influence of these silly little
creatures upon creation's lords.
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