Page 158 - erewhon

CHAPTER XVI: AROWHENA

he reader will perhaps have learned by this time a thing
Twhich I had myself suspected before I had been twenty-
four hours in Mr. Nosnibor’s house—I mean, that though
the Nosnibors showed me every attention, I could not cor-
dially like them, with the exception of Arowhena who was
quite different from the rest. They were not fair samples of
Erewhonians. I saw many families with whom they were
on visiting terms, whose manners charmed me more than
I know how to say, but I never could get over my original
prejudice against Mr. Nosnibor for having embezzled the
money. Mrs. Nosnibor, too, was a very worldly woman, yet
to hear her talk one would have thought that she was singu-
larly the reverse; neither could I endure Zulora; Arowhena
however was perfection.
She it was who ran all the little errands for her moth-
er and Mr. Nosnibor and Zulora, and gave those thousand
proofs of sweetness and unselfishness which some one
member of a family is generally required to give. All day
long it was Arowhena this, and Arowhena that; but she
never seemed to know that she was being put upon, and
was always bright and willing from morning till evening.
Zulora certainly was very handsome, but Arowhena was in-
finitely the more graceful of the two and was the very ne
plus ultra of youth and beauty. I will not attempt to describe

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