Seeing thus much, he took it to mean that it was a time for plain-speaking.

To what end, he did not ask.
"You have not to be told that I desire your happiness above all earthly things," he said: and the lady shrank back, and made an effort to recover her footing.

Had he not been so careful to obliterate any badge of the Squire of low degree, at his elbows, cuffs, collar, kneecap, and head-piece, she might have achieved it with better success.

For cynicism (the younger brother of sentiment and inheritor of the family property) is always on the watch to deal fatal blows through such vital parts as the hat or the H's, or indeed any sign of inferior estate.

But Mr.
Barrett was armed at all points by a consummate education and a most serviceable clothesbrush.
"You know how I love this neighbourhood!" said she.
"And I! above all that I have known!" They left the pathway and walked on mosses--soft yellow beds, run over with grey lichen, and plots of emerald in the midst.
"You will not fall off with your reading ?" he recommenced.
She answered "Yes," meaning "No"; and corrected the error languidly, thinking one of the weighty monosyllables as good as the other: for what was reading to her now?
"It would be ten thousand pities if you were to do as so many women do, when...