I know nothing, indeed, which so disfigures the countenance of a young person, or so impresses every feature with an air of demureness, if not altogether of sanctimoniousness and of age.

Now what we have instead are ankle-skimming dresses (preferably with long or three-quarter-length sleeves), midi skirts, Downton Abbey-esque high-neck blouses and a general air of demureness.

But for all the modesty of her spreading skirts the demureness of hair netted smoothly into a chignon and the quietness of small white hands folded in her lap her true self was poorly concealed.