He might be a burglar in disguise, or a murderer, or a child-eater.

And yet these two foolish people struck a bargain with one another five minutes after their first introduction, and before even the potatoes which Mrs Trimble had left on her plate when she went to the door had had time to get cold.
I am just as much surprised as the reader at their rashness, which I can only account for by supposing that they were both what the reader would call "hard up." Jeffreys, as we know, was very hard up; and as for Mrs Trimble, the amount of worry she had endured since Mr Fison had left was beyond all words.

She had had to teach as well as manage, the thing she never liked.

And her son and assistant, without a second usher to keep him steady, had been turning her hair grey.

For three weeks she had waited in vain.