Nellie, too, who was an observant child, had ceased asking questions but watched her mother with her great violet eyes in a way that made Mrs.Goddard nervous.

Nellie liked the squire very much but though she asked her mother very often at first whether she, too, was fond of that nice Mr.
Juxon, the answers she received were not encouraging.

How was it possible, Mrs.Goddard asked, to speak of liking anybody one had known so short a time?
And as Nellie was quite unable to answer such an inquiry, she desisted from her questions and applied herself to the method of personal observation.

But here, too, she was met by a hopeless difficulty.

The squire and her mother never seemed to have any secrets, as Nellie would have expressed it.