He was not so young as he once had been;--but he was still a young man, only just turned forty, and was his own master in everything.

He could read, and he always looked at the country newspaper; but a book was a thing that he couldn't bear to handle.

He didn't think he had ever seen a girl sit a horse better than Adelaide Palliser sat hers, and a girl who rode as she did would probably like a man addicted to hunting.

Mr.Spooner knew that he understood hunting, whereas that fellow Maule cared for nothing but jumping over flights of rails.

He asked a few questions that evening of Phineas Finn respecting Gerard Maule, but did not get much information.