A minute of talk with you is worth an hour with anybody else.

But I fear that you laugh at me all the while, and are only too glad to be rid of me.

Good-by.

May I kiss your hand?
God bless you!" Mary had no time to say a single word, or even to express her ideas by a look, before Robin Lyth, with all his bright apparel, was "conspicuous by his absence." As a diving bird disappears from a gun, or a trout from a shadow on his hover, or even a debtor from his creditor, so the great free-trader had vanished into lightsome air, and left emptiness behind him.
The young maid, having been prepared to yield him a few yards more of good advice, if he held out for another corner, now could only say to herself that she never had met such a wonderful man.

So active, strong, and astonishingly brave; so thoroughly acquainted with foreign lands, yet superior to their ladies; so able to see all the meaning of good words, and to value them when offered quietly; so sweet in his manner, and voice, and looks; and with all his fame so unpretending, and--much as it frightened her to think it--really seeming to be afraid of her..