“Ernestine wasn’t unhappy as such. Like ordinary people everywhere, she didn’t really know what she was missing, and, if she did suspect, she would remind herself she didn’t care. She rarely raised her voice and never spoke her mind, and acquaintances thought of her as homespun, if they thought of her at all. She wasn’t entirely without imagination, however; Ernestine owned a teal-coloured shawl she one day hoped to muster the courage to wear, and now and then might linger before the smartest shops, looking in at feathered hats and pointed shoes, as a child might gawp at an aquarium.”
