After that we were always companions--we used to go out at night with the keepers after poachers; we spent hours in the snow watching for wood-pigeons; we shot that pair of kestrels over the inner hall door, in the Windmill Hill fields--at least I did--I was a better shot than he by that time.

He didn't like Robert--he always wanted me." "Well, papa, but what does he say ?" asked Marcella, impatiently.

She laid her hand, however, as she spoke, on her father's shoulder.
Mr.Boyce winced and looked up at her.

He and her mother had originally sent their daughter away from home that they might avoid the daily worry of her awakening curiosities, and one of his resolutions in coming to Mellor Park had been to keep up his dignity with her.

But the sight of her dark face bent upon him, softened by a quick and womanly compassion, seemed to set free a new impulse in him.
"He writes in the third person, if you want to know, my dear, and refers me to his agent, very much as though I were some London grocer who had just bought the place.