As it was, with that figure ...

But she was a good girl.

Uncle Mathew felt kind and tender-hearted towards her.

He would advise her about life of which he had had a very considerable experience, and of which, of course, she knew nothing.

His heart was warm, although it would have been warmer still had he been able to drink a glass of something before starting out.
"And what will you do now, my dear, do you think ?" he asked.
They had left the deep lanes and struck across the hard-rutted fields.
A thin powder of snow lay upon the land, and under the yellow light of the winter sky the surface was blue, shadowed with white patches where the snow had fallen more thickly.