Why is it that a woman can see from a distance what a man cannot see close? - Thomas Hardy

She heard footsteps brushing the grass, and had a consciousnesss that love was encircling her like a perfume.

but she remained more or less and ideal character, about whose form he began to weave curious and fantastic day-dreams.

There were a few middle-aged and even elderly women in the train, their silver-wiry hair and wrinkled faces, scourged by time and trouble, having almost a grotesque, certainly a pathetic, appearance in such a jaunty situation. In a true view, perhaps, there was more to be gathered and told of each anxious and experienced one, to whom the years were drawing nigh when she should say, 'I have no pleasure in them', than of her juvenile comrades. But let the elder be passed over here for those under whose bodices the life throbbed quick and warm.