"To produce such a graybeard of a book at two and twenty, Mr.Sandys," said Cathro, "is amazing.

It partakes, sir, of the nature of the miraculous; it's onchancey, by which we mean a deviation from the normal." And so on.
To escape this kind of flattery (he had so often heard it said by ladies, who could say it so much better), Tommy turned to his neighbours on the right.
Oddly enough, they also were discussing deviations from the normal.

On the table was a plant in full flower, and Ailie, who had lent it, was expressing surprise that it should bloom so late in the season.
"So early in its life, I should rather say," the doctor remarked after examining it.

"It is a young plant, and in the ordinary course would not have come to flower before next year.

But it is afraid that it will never see next year.