"Take care of yourself, old fellow.

It will be nightfall before I am back from Norton Bury." I watched him mount, and ride slowly down the bit of common--turning once to look back at Rose Cottage, ere he finally disappeared between the chestnut trees: a goodly sight--for he was an admirable horseman.
When he was gone, I, glancing lazily up at Mr.March's window, saw a hand, and I fancied a white-furred wrist, pulling down the blind.

It amused me to think Miss March might possibly have been watching him likewise.
I spent the whole long day alone in the cottage parlour, chiefly meditating; though more than once friendly Mrs.Tod broke in upon my solitude.

She treated me in a motherly, free-and-easy way: not half so deferentially as she treated John Halifax.
The sun had gone down over Nunnely Hill, behind the four tall Italian poplars, which stood on the border of our bit of wilderness--three together and one apart.

They were our landmarks--and skymarks too--for the first sunbeam coming across the common struck their tops of a morning, and the broad western glimmer showed their forms distinctly until far in the night.