The poor girl liked to be thought clever, but she hated to be thought bookish; she used to read in secret and, though her memory was excellent, to abstain from showy reference.
the surface communication was interrupted by a dozen capricious forces.
She had a great desire for knowledge, but she really preferred almost any source of information to the printed page; she had an immense curiosity about life and was constantly staring and wondering
Her father had a large way of looking at life
she moved about the room with a new sense of complications
She had never felt equally moved to it by any other person
The importance of what had happened was out of proportion to its appearance
It appeared to Isabel that
this was the truth that seemed to emerge most vividly
It was on the contrary because she felt too wide-eyed and wished to check the sense of seeing too many things at once.