"I have come to look over the house, and was just told that you were here.
As we are not absolute strangers"---- He had never met her in the social way, though she had been a resident at Polterham for some six years.

Through Mrs.Liversedge, her repute had long ago reached him; she was universally considered eccentric, and, by many people, hardly proper for an acquaintance.

On her first arrival in the town she wore the garb of recent widowhood; relatives here she had none, but an old friendship existed between her and the occupants of this house, a childless couple named Hornibrook.

Her age was now about thirty.
Quarrier was far from regarding her as an attractive woman.

He thought better of her intelligence than before hearing her speak, and it was not difficult for him to imagine that the rumour of Polterham went much astray when it concerned itself with her characteristics; but the face now directed to him had no power whatever over his sensibilities.