The old-fashioned garden was lighted in every part, and the company
dispersed themselves about it in picturesque groups.
We have the image in our mind of Mary as she stood with her little hat
and wreath of rose-buds, her fluttering ribbons and rich brocade, as it
were a picture framed in the door-way, with her back to the illuminated
garden, and her calm, innocent face regarding with a pleased wonder the
unaccustomed gayeties within.
Her dress, which, under Miss Prissy's forming hand, had been made to
assume that appearance of style and fashion which more particularly
characterized the mode of those times, formed a singular, but not
unpleasing, contrast to the sort of dewy freshness of air and mien which
was characteristic of her style of beauty. It seemed so to represent
a being who was in the world, yet not of it,--who, though living
habitually in a higher region of thought and feeling, was artlessly
curious, and innocently pleased with a fresh experience in an altogether
untried sphere. The feeling of being in a circle to which she did not
belong, where her presence was in a manner an accident, and where she
felt none of the responsibilities which come from being a component part
of a society, gave to her a quiet, disengaged air, which produced all
the effect of the perfect ease of high breeding.
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