One had the feeling when listening to Mr.Odell-Carney that he was being favoured beyond words; it took him so long to say anything, that, if one were but moderately bright, he could finish the sentence mentally some little time in advance of the speaker, and thus be prepared to properly appreciate that which otherwise might have puzzled him considerably.

It could not be said, however, that Mr.Odell-Carney was ponderous; he was merely the effectual result of delay.

Perhaps it is safe to agree with those who knew him best; they maintained that Odell-Carney was a pose, nothing more.
His wife was quite the opposite in nearly every particular, except height and angularity.

She was bony and red-faced and opinionated.

A few sallow years with a rapid, profligate nobleman had brought her, in widowhood, to a fine sense of appreciation of the slow-going though tiresomely unpractical men of the Odell-Carney type.