As
in all else, Ernest was present in this. He would doubtless be
intelligent, wise, like Mr. Schwartz, and how could she be his
companion? Something of these new experiences in Meeta was divined by
Mrs. Schwartz, and with a true womanly tact she became her teacher
without wounding her self-love. The road to knowledge once opened to
Meeta, her advance on it was rapid. How could it be otherwise, when
every step was bringing her nearer to Earnest! The elevation and
refinement of mind which Meeta thus acquired impressed themselves on her
agreeable features. Her dark eyes became bright with the soul's light,
and her whole aspect so attractive, that her old friends exclaimed, as
they looked upon her, "How handsome Meeta Werner grows, she who used to
be so plain!"
After a time these superficial observers thought they had found the
cause of this change in Meeta's change of costume, for a new sense of
beauty had been awakened in her, under whose guidance her dark hair was
brought in soft silken braids upon her cheeks, wound gracefully around
her well-shaped head, and sometimes ornamented with a ribbon or a
cluster of wild flowers: while her dresses where remodelled so as to
resemble less the fashion which her mother and her sister emigrants had
imported thirteen years before from Germany, and to give a more natural
air to her really fine figure.
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