Nevertheless , he felt strangely interested . This Min Palmer must at least be different from the rest of the Cornerites , if only in the greater force of her wickedness . He almost felt as if her sins on the grand scale were less blameworthy than the petty vices of her censorious neighbours . Galletly eagerly joined the group of loungers on the dirty wet platform , and Telford passed into the store . A couple of slatternly women were talking to Mrs. Rykman about `` the Palmer row . '' Telford made his small purchases hastily . As he turned from the counter , he came face to face with a woman who had paused in the doorway to survey the scene with an air of sullen scorn . By some subtle intuition Telford knew that this was Min Palmer . The young man 's first feeling was one of admiration for the woman before him , who , in spite of her grotesque attire and defiant , unwomanly air , was strikingly beautiful . She was tall , and not even the man 's ragged overcoat which she wore could conceal the grace of her figure . Her abundant black hair was twisted into a sagging knot at her neck , and from beneath the old fur cap looked out a pair of large and brilliant black eyes , heavily lashed , and full of a smouldering fire . Her skin was tanned and coarsened , but the warm crimson blood glowed in her cheeks with a dusky richness , and her face was a perfect oval , with features chiselled in almost classic regularity of outline . Telford had a curious experience at that moment . He seemed to see , looking out from behind this external mask of degraded beauty , the semblance of what this woman might have been under more favouring circumstance of birth and environment , wherein her rich , passionate nature , potent for either good or evil , might have been trained and swayed aright until it had developed grandly out into the glorious womanhood the Creator must have planned for her . He knew , as if by revelation , that this woman had nothing in common with the narrow , self-righteous souls of Rykman 's Corner . Warped and perverted though her nature might be , she was yet far nobler than those who sat in judgement upon her . Min made some scanty purchases and left the store quickly , brushing unheedingly past the minister as she did so . He saw her step on a rough wood-sleigh and drive down the river road . The platform loungers had been silent during her call , but now the talk bubbled forth anew . Telford was sick at heart as he drove swiftly away .
He XXXXX for Min Palmer a pity he could not understand or analyze .
chiselled coarsened drive drove felt knew lashed passed saw talking