I am in dismal spirits." Rowland said he would do what he could, and brought a chair and placed it near her.

He was not in love with her; he disapproved of her; he mistrusted her; and yet he felt it a kind of privilege to watch her, and he found a peculiar excitement in talking to her.

The background of her nature, as he would have called it, was large and mysterious, and it emitted strange, fantastic gleams and flashes.

Watching for these rather quickened one's pulses.

Moreover, it was not a disadvantage to talk to a girl who made one keep guard on one's composure; it diminished one's chronic liability to utter something less than revised wisdom.
Assunta had risen from her prayers, and, as he took his place, was coming back to her mistress.