Had Jill really taken his fancy, I wondered?
had her big eyes and quaint speeches bewitched him?
Mr.Tudor was a gentleman, and we all liked him; but what would Uncle Brian and Aunt Philippa say if a needy, good-looking young curate were suddenly to present himself as a lover for their daughter Jocelyn?
Why, Jill would be rich some day,--poor Ralph was dead, and she and Sara would be co-heiresses.

Her parents would expect her to make a grand match.
I shook my head gravely over poor Lawrence's prospects as I took my way slowly up the hill.

I was rather glad when his broad shoulders were out of sight; I should be sorry if any disappointment were to cloud his cheery nature.
I missed Jill a great deal at first, but in my heart I was not sorry to get rid of the responsibility; a lively girl of sixteen, with strong individuality and marked precocity, is likely to be a formidable charge; but Mrs.Barton lamented her absence in no measured terms.
'It seems so dull without Miss Jocelyn,' she said, the first evening.
'She was such a lively young lady, and made us all cheerful.

Why, she would run in and out the kitchen a dozen times a day, to feed the chickens, or pet the cat, or watch me knead the bread.

She and Nathaniel got on famously together, and often I have found her helping him with the books, and laughing so merrily when he made a mistake.