She was the most charming little girl the human mind can conceive.
Our cold English language fails, in its roughness, to describe her.
She was petite, mignonne, graceful, fairy-like, yet with a touch
of Yankee quaintness and a delicious espieglerie that made her
absolutely unique in my experience of women. We had utterly lost
our hearts to her before ever we reached Liverpool; and, strange to
say, I believe the one of us whose heart was most completely gone
was, if only you'll believe it, that calmly terrible Lucy.
Melissa's most winning characteristic, however, as it seemed to me,
was her perfect frankness. As we whirled along on our way across
England, she told us everything about herself, her family, her friends,
her neighbours, and the population of Kansas City in general. Not
obtrusively or egotistically,--of egotism Melissa would be wholly
incapable,--but in a certain timid, confiding, half-childlike way,
as of the lost little girl, that was absolutely captivating. "Oh
no, ma'am," she said, in answer to one of Lucy's earliest questions;
"I didn't come over alone. I think I'd be afraid to. I came with a
whole squad of us who were doing Europe.
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