For he had been to her the very pink of courtesy and consideration, and she was of opinion that 'poor Richard's views' of the degeneracy of Oxford men would have been modified could he have seen this particular specimen.
Later on in the morning Rose had been out giving Bob a run, while Agnes drove with her mother.

On the way home she overtook Elsmere returning from an errand for the vicar.
'It is not so bad,' she said to him, laughing, pointing to the sky; 'we really might have gone.' 'Oh, it would have been cheerless,' he said, simply.

His look of depression amazed her.

She felt a quick movement of sympathy, a wild wish to bid him cheer up and fight it out.

If she could just have shown him Catherine as she looked last night! Why couldn't she talk it out with him?
Absurd conventions! She had half a mind to try.
But the grave look of the man beside her deterred even her young half-childish audacity.
'Catherine will have a good day for all her business,' she said, carelessly.
He assented quietly.