" .... she was like a flower.
And suddenly, for a vivid minute, Hercule Poirot had a new conception of
the dead girl. In that halting rustic voice the girl Mary lived and bloomed
again. "She was like a flower."
There was suddenly a poignant sense of loss, of something exquisite
destroyed. In his mind phrase after phrase succeeded each other. Peter
Lord's "She was a nice kid." Nurse Hopkins's "She could have gone on the
films any time." Mrs. Bishop's venomous "No patience with her airs and
graces." And now last, putting to shame, laying aside those other views,
the quiet, wondering, "She was like a flower. "

― Agatha Christie , Sad Cypress (Hercule Poirot, #19)