The last one -- he was about your heft -- he got a scare , I tell you . Min just caught him by the shoulder and shook him like a rat ! Did n't see it myself but Mrs. Rawlings did . Ye ought to hear her describin ' of it . '' Galletly chuckled over the recollection , his wicked little eyes glistening with delight . Telford was thankful when they reached the store . He felt that he could not endure this man 's society any longer . Nevertheless , he felt strangely interested . This Min Palmer must at least be different from the rest of the Cornerites , if only in the greater force of her wickedness . He almost felt as if her sins on the grand scale were less blameworthy than the petty vices of her censorious neighbours . Galletly eagerly joined the group of loungers on the dirty wet platform , and Telford passed into the store . A couple of slatternly women were talking to Mrs. Rykman about `` the Palmer row . '' Telford made his small purchases hastily . As he turned from the counter , he came face to face with a woman who had paused in the doorway to survey the scene with an air of sullen scorn . By some subtle intuition Telford knew that this was Min Palmer . The young man 's first feeling was one of admiration for the woman before him , who , in spite of her grotesque attire and defiant , unwomanly air , was strikingly beautiful . She was tall , and not even the man 's ragged overcoat which she wore could conceal the grace of her figure . Her abundant black hair was twisted into a sagging knot at her neck , and from beneath the old fur cap looked out a pair of large and brilliant black eyes , heavily lashed , and full of a smouldering fire . Her skin was tanned and coarsened , but the warm crimson blood glowed in her cheeks with a dusky richness , and her face was a perfect oval , with features chiselled in almost classic regularity of outline . Telford had a curious experience at that moment .
He seemed to see , looking out from behind this external mask of degraded beauty , the semblance of what this XXXXX might have been under more favouring circumstance of birth and environment , wherein her rich , passionate nature , potent for either good or evil , might have been trained and swayed aright until it had developed grandly out into the glorious womanhood the Creator must have planned for her .
Mrs. figure moment neck recollection scare shoulder society vices woman