It is nearly time for me to go, I think." "Not yet, sir, I hope; not yet for a long time," said George Hawker, in an offhand sort of way.

But Mary slipped round, kissed his forehead, and took his hand quietly in hers.
John looked from her to George, and dropped her hand with a sigh, and soon the lovers were whispering together again in the darkness of the window.
But now there is a fresh footfall on the garden walk, a quick, rapid, decided one.

Somebody burst open the hall-door, and, without shutting it, dashes into the parlour, accompanied by a tornado of damp air, and announces in a loud though not unpleasant voice, with a foreign accent-- "I have got the new Scolopax." He was a broad, massive built man, about the middle height, with a square determined set of features, brightened up by a pair of merry blue eyes.

His forehead was, I think, the finest I ever saw; so high, so broad, and so upright; and, altogether, he was the sort of man that in a city one would turn round and look after, wondering who he was.
He stood in the doorway, dripping, and without "Good-even," or salutation of any sort, exclaimed-- "I have got the new Scolopax!" "No!" cried old John, starting up all alive, "Have you though?
How did you get him?
Are you sure it is not a young Jack?
Come in and tell us all about it.

Only think." "The obstinacy and incredulity of you English," replied the new comer, totally disregarding John's exclamations, and remaining dripping in the doorway, "far exceeds anything I could have conceived, if I had not witnessed it.