"What good can I do ?" "The longer I know you, Mr.Betteredge," said the Sergeant, "the more virtues I discover.

Modesty--oh dear me, how rare modesty is in this world! and how much of that rarity you possess! If I go alone to the cottage, the people's tongues will be tied at the first question I put to them.

If I go with you, I go introduced by a justly respected neighbour, and a flow of conversation is the necessary result.

It strikes me in that light; how does it strike you ?" Not having an answer of the needful smartness as ready as I could have wished, I tried to gain time by asking him what cottage he wanted to go to.
On the Sergeant describing the place, I recognised it as a cottage inhabited by a fisherman named Yolland, with his wife and two grown-up children, a son and a daughter.

If you will look back, you will find that, in first presenting Rosanna Spearman to your notice, I have described her as occasionally varying her walk to the Shivering Sand, by a visit to some friends of hers at Cobb's Hole.