human
How one knows the kind of girl! One meets a specimen in almost every house-party. She is nicely dressed, but not quite so nicely as the other girls staying in the house. She has charming manners, but there is something of the offensive and defensive sharpness of the street Arab about her. She has had to take care of herself ever since she was grown up, and make her tongue do the work of chaperonage. If it rains, she is in mute agony, because she cannot afford to spoil her clothes. She takes Champagne regularly at dinner because she does not have it at home. She is at some pains to propitiate her hostess, because she intends to be asked again. She holds her tongue when grand functions are mentioned, because she was not there. In short, she is a kind of innocent whited sepulchre; a frail, jerry-built edifice, whose prestige may be destroyed at any moment by untoward revelations as to her social standing, whose whole endeavour is to give the impression that she lives in a mentionable part of London, and dresses on more than thirty pounds a year.