Answer:
In simple words, The Portrait of a Lady refers to the novel from Henry James, initially written in 1880–81 as just a series in The Atlantic Monthly as well as Macmillan's Weekly, and later in 1881 as a volume. This is one of the most famous long books by James, and is deemed also one his best by reviewers.
The Portrait of a Lady is the storey of Isabel Archer, a spirited young American woman, who finds it overwhelming, "confronting her fate." She acquires a significant sum of wealth as well as two American expatriates subsequently become the victim of Machiavellian scheming.
7 metaphors and 6 similes
The purpose of these lines is to show that every beautiful thing some time will lose its beauty either by time (nature's changing course) or by chance e.g. an unfortunate event
This is due to contrast in language. Describing a simple and everyday object such an umbrella is not supposed to need formal or logic language and that is, precisely, the comic effect of the comparison.
The words that describe the noun agreement are ''serious talk'' and ''agreement.''
