Fanny Newt turned to her sister, who sat smiling by her side.
"What is the matter with this man ?" asked Mrs.Alfred Dinks, audibly, of May.
"There is a pregnant text, my dear Mrs.Dinks, _nee_ Newt, a name which I delight to pronounce," said Gabriel, striking in before May could reply, with the lightest tone and the soberest face in the world, "which instructs us to answer a fool according to his folly." Fanny was really confounded.

She had heard Abel in old days speak of Gabriel Bennet as a spooney--a saint in the milk--a goodsey, boodsey, booby--a sort of youth who would turn pale and be snuffed out by one of her glances.

She found him incomprehensible.

She owed him the first positive emotion of human interest she had known for years.
May Newt looked and listened without speaking.

The soft light glimmered in her eyes, for she knew what it all meant.