Rose, Blanche, and Violet, Volume I by George Henry Lewes

No doating mother could have seemed kinder to her daughters than was Mrs. Meredith Vyner to Rose and Blanche, for the first three weeks after their arrival from school. She insisted upon their each having a separate allowance; but contrived that it should be totally inadequate to the necessary expenses. She shopped with them, but recommended, in a tone which was almost an insistance, colours which neither suited their complexions, nor assorted well with each other. She made them numberless little presents, and was always saying charming things to them. If they thought her pleasant before, they now declared her quite loveable. They looked up to her, not only as one having a mother's authority, but also as a superior being, for she had made a decided impression on them of that kind, by always condemning or ridiculing their own tastes and opinions as "girlish," and by carefully repeating (with what amount of embroidery I will not say) all the compliments which men paid her on her own supreme taste. The latter were not few. Partly because a pretty, lively woman never is in want of them: the more so, because Mrs. Meredith Vyner not only courted admiration, but demanded it. What more natural, therefore, that two girls, hearing from their father, who was so learned, such praises of their step-mother's talents, and observing such submission from other men to her taste, should blindly acknowledge a superiority so proclaimed?

As if to make "assurance doubly sure," Mrs. Meredith Vyner would occasionally repeat to them, with strong disclaimers, as "unwarrantably satirical," certain depreciatory comments which had been made to her, she said, by men, the gist of which was, that they were not admired. After a while, the poor girls actually believed they were wanting in attractions. Rose's brilliant colour was a milkmaid's coarseness, and Blanche's retiring manners were owing to a want of grace and style. Rose, who was merry, was given to understand that she was loud and vulgar. Blanche, who was all gentleness, had learned to consider herself as an uninteresting, apathetic, awkward girl.