She had a fixed determination to regard the world as a place of brightness, of free expansion, of irresistible action. She had an infinite hope that she should never do anything wrong. The chance of inflicting a sensible injury upon another person always struck her as the worst thing that could happen to her. She was stoutly determined not to be hollow. Her way of taking compliments was to get rid of them as rapidly as possible. She was thought insensible to them whereas, in fact, she was simply unwilling to show how infinitely they pleased her.
