Philippa

Some of her friends (or perhaps acquaintance would be the truer word) had been known to describe Philippa Harford as an "odd girl," and if this indefinite adjective meant that she was somewhat different from the majority of young women of her generation, there was truth in the description. For while freedom of action and of speech are notably characteristic of the young of the present day, there was about her a reserve, one might almost say a dignity, beyond her years. Where the modern girl will cheerfully collect friends haphazard by the roadside, Philippa allowed very few to pass the line which divides the stream of acquaintanceship from the deep waters of friendship.

There are, and always will be, some people who display to the world a formidable aspect, as it were a stone wall with a bristling row of broken bottles on the top, or an ugly notice board with injunctions, such as "Strictly Private," or "Keep off the Grass," but Philippa was not one of these. You might wander in her company along paths of pleasant conversation, through a garden where bloomed bright flowers of intelligence and humour, and it was only afterwards that you realised what in the enjoyment of the moment you had failed to notice, namely, that inside the garden a high hedge, which had appeared merely a pleasing background for the flowers, had completely hidden the part you most particularly wished to see, and that the paths had brought you out at the exact spot where you entered.