I can not tell precisely, therefore, what the incidents were that contributed to make Mr.Tottenham, on our return from these expeditions, so thoughtful, with a thoughtfulness which increased, towards the end of them, to a positive gravity.

This would disappear during dinner under the influence of food and drink.

He would talk nightly with new enthusiasm and fresh hope--or did I imagine it ?--of the loveliness he had arranged to reveal on the following day.
If again my imagination did not lead me astray, I fancied this occurred later and later in the course of the meal as the week went on; as if his state required more stimulus as time progressed.

One evening, when I expected it to flag altogether, I had a whim to order champagne and observe the effect; but I am glad to say that I reproved myself, and refrained.
Cecily, meanwhile, was conducting herself in a manner which left nothing to be desired.

If, as I sometimes thought, she took Dacres very much for granted, she took him calmly for granted; she seemed a prey to none of those fluttering uncertainties, those suspended judgments and elaborate indifferences which translate themselves so plainly in a young lady receiving addresses.