She reminded him, in that first vision of her, of "Phiz's" pictures of Mrs.Clennam in _Little Dorrit_, and always afterwards that connection remained with him.

Her thin, spare figure had something intense, almost burning, in its immobility, in the deep black of her dress and hair, in the white sharpness of the outline of her face.
How admirably, it seemed to him, she suited that room.

She too may have thought as she turned slowly to look at him that he fitted his background, with the spare dignity of his figure, his fine eyes, the black and white contrast of his body so that his cheeks, his hands, seemed almost to shine against the faded air.

It is certain that they recognized at once some common ground so that they met as though they had known one another for many years.

The old minor caught for a moment the fine gravity and silence of his approach to her as he waited for her to greet him.
But before she could speak to him the door had opened and Margaret Craven entered.