This otherwise incomprehensible reception of a person who had kept the dinner waiting twenty minutes, and who had not done the mutton properly even then (taken in connection with the master's complimentary inquiries, reported downstairs by the footman), could bear but one interpretation.

It wasn't every woman who had her beautiful hair, and her rosy complexion.

Why had she not thought of going upstairs first, just to see whether she looked her best in the glass?
Would he begin by making a confession?
or would he begin by kissing her?
He began by lighting his pipe.

For a while he smoked placidly with his eye on the cook.

"I hear you have been reading a story," he resumed.
"What is the name of it ?" "'Pamela; or Virtue Rewarded,' sir." Benjulia went on with his smoking.