One of them will come and the rest will tumble over one another to get into your drawing-room." How much he believed of what he said Stella did not inquire.

She had a gift of silence.

She just walked a little nearer to him and smiled, lest any should think she had noticed the slight.

The one man, in a word, who showed signs of wear and tear was Mr.Hazlewood himself.

So keen was his distress that he had no fear of his sister's sarcasms.
"I--think of it!" he exclaimed in a piteous bewilderment, "actually I have become sensitive to public opinion," and Mrs.Pettifer forbore from the comments which she very much longed to make.