Isn't it so--eh, Maria ?" Maria, thus sharply appealed to, answered with her usual monosyllable.
Dr.Grey looked at his wife in a puzzled, absent way.

He was very absent--there was no doubt of it--and sometimes, seemed as shut up in himself as if he had lived a bachelor all his life.

Besides, he did not readily take in the small wrongs--petty offenses--which make half the misery of domestic life, and are equally contemptible in the offender and the offended.

There was something pathetically innocent in the way he said.
"I really do not quite understand.

Christian, what does it all mean ?" "It means," said Christian, trying hard to restrain an indignant answer, "that Miss Gascoigne is giving herself a great deal of needless trouble about a thing which will never happen.