I know you must have gone through an awful lot in the last month or two--perhaps even longer--but I don't know about that.
And I want to begin by apologizing if I am doing what I shouldn't.

The fact is that--well, that I daren't risk waiting." He did not look at Jenny (he was observing the robin that had gone and come again since Jenny had appeared), but he was aware that at his first sentence she had suddenly settled down into complete motionlessness.

He wondered whether that was a good omen or not.
"Well, now," he said, "let me give a little account of myself first.

I'm just thirty-one; I've got four hundred a year of my own, and Lord Talgarth allows me twelve hundred a year more.

Then I've got other expectations, as they say.