'I don't know that he is, but I believe so.' 'Ah, you may depend upon it he is, or he wouldn't be so surly,' remarked Miss La Creevy, who was an odd little mixture of shrewdness and simplicity.

'When a man's a bear, he is generally pretty independent.' 'His manner is rough,' said Kate.
'Rough!' cried Miss La Creevy, 'a porcupine's a featherbed to him! I never met with such a cross-grained old savage.' 'It is only his manner, I believe,' observed Kate, timidly; 'he was disappointed in early life, I think I have heard, or has had his temper soured by some calamity.

I should be sorry to think ill of him until I knew he deserved it.' 'Well; that's very right and proper,' observed the miniature painter, 'and Heaven forbid that I should be the cause of your doing so! But, now, mightn't he, without feeling it himself, make you and your mama some nice little allowance that would keep you both comfortable until you were well married, and be a little fortune to her afterwards?
What would a hundred a year for instance, be to him ?' 'I don't know what it would be to him,' said Kate, with energy, 'but it would be that to me I would rather die than take.' 'Heyday!' cried Miss La Creevy.
'A dependence upon him,' said Kate, 'would embitter my whole life.

I should feel begging a far less degradation.' 'Well!' exclaimed Miss La Creevy.

'This of a relation whom you will not hear an indifferent person speak ill of, my dear, sounds oddly enough, I confess.' 'I dare say it does,' replied Kate, speaking more gently, 'indeed I am sure it must.