rseback, with a serene manner, and amiable gaiety tempered with dignity at all hours. Beautiful teeth and hands, of course, and over and above all this, some mysterious crown of enchantment that attracted and held the heart" (176).There is nothing to speak of in this quote about any mental abilities nor moral or virtuous behavior, with the exception of the mention of having dignity. The description of a woman that Miranda is brought up to want to emulate, is simply that of a facade, a certain look which she hopes she will one day she be able to achieve. "Miranda persisted all through her childhood in believing,..., that by some miracle she would grow into a tall, cream-colored brunette" (176). To contrast the vision of beauty that Maria and Miranda are constantly reminded of, they are also told what the opposite of beauty was. Their cousin Eva, is well-known in the family for being ugly. "Eva, shy and chinless, straining her upper lip over two enormous teeth...She wore her mother's clothing, made over, and taught Latin in a Female Seminary. She believed in votes for women, and had traveled about making speeches" (178). Eva never married because she was not beautiful. She was intelligent and worked to get women the right to vote and because of this was not able to charm men with her conversation. The young girls arre treated by their father in accordance with these beauty oriented attitudes. Harry, the girls' father, is described as a "a pleasant, everyday sort of father" (184) and that he would hold "his daughters on his knee if they were prettily dressed and well behaved" but he "pushed them away if they had not freshly combed hair and nicely scrubbed fingernails. ‘Go away, you're disgusting' he would say in a matter-of-fact voice" (184). The girls understood why their father would do this. It was to prepare them for the future where they would need to impress a man with their femininity in order for him to take ...
