Mrs Hearn was perhaps a little hard of hearing; but it was very little, and she hated to be thought deaf.

She did not, moreover, like to be thought rheumatic.

This the squire knew, and therefore his mode of address was not good-natured.
"You needn't make me jump so, Mr Dale.

I'm pretty well now, thank ye.
I did have a twinge in the spring,--that cottage is so badly built for draughts! 'I wonder you can live in it,' my sister said to me the last time she was over.

I suppose I should be better off over with her at Hamersham, only one doesn't like to move, you know, after living fifty years in one parish." "You mustn't think of going away from us," Mrs Boyce said, speaking by no means loud, but slowly and plainly, hoping thereby to flatter the old woman.