The general view in Georgetown was that the girl had a rabbit’s chance of marriage. Some people found her attractive in an odd sort of way—distinctive, at any rate, with her strange coloring. But although she looked much like her mother, Pearl did not have those qualities that Nealie had possessed that had made men turn and stare at her. Of course, few compared Pearl with her mother, because except for Charlie and Mrs. Travers, Mr. Kaiser at the store and the minister at the Presbyterian church, nobody remembered Nealie. If they had, they might have been puzzled that this shy, reserved woman with the air of someone twice her age was the daughter of the vivacious young hired girl. Some wondered that Pearl had ever been a girl at all. Despite the easy days of her growing-up years, Pearl seemed never to have been young. While Charlie was blustery and outgoing, a man who made his views known to everyone, Pearl was her father’s shadow, a quiet, rather simple child who blended into the background.
