He looked considerably the worse for his week's absence, the old Yorkshire-woman said, as she waited upon him while he ate a chop and drank two large cups of very strong tea.
Mr.Sheldon made short work of his impromptu meal.

He seemed anxious to put an end to his housekeeper's affectionate interest in himself and his health, and to get her out of the room.

She had nursed him nearly thirty years before, and the recollection that she had been very familiar with him when he was a handsome black-eyed baby, with a tendency to become suddenly stiff of body and crimson of visage without any obvious provocation, inclined her to take occasional liberties now.
She watched him furtively as he sat in a big high-backed arm-chair staring moodily at the struggling fire, and would fain have questioned him a little about Barlingford and Barlingford people.
But Philip Sheldon was not a man with whom even a superannuated nurse can venture to take many liberties.

He was a good master, paid his servants their wages with unfailing punctuality, and gave very little trouble.

But he was the last person in the world upon whom a garrulous woman could venture to inflict her rambling discourse; as Nancy Woolper--by courtesy, Mrs.Woolper--was fain to confess to her next-door neighbour, Mrs.Magson, when her master was the subject of an afternoon gossip.