They were just near enough for me to hear their faint rustling in windy weather; on calm days they stood up straight against the sky, like memorial columns.

They were friends of mine--those four poplars; sometimes they almost seemed alive.

We made acquaintance on this first night, when I sat watching for John; and we kept up the friendship ever afterwards.
It was nine o'clock before I heard the old mare's hoofs clattering up the road: joyfully I ran out.
David was not quite his youthful, gay self that night; not quite, as he expressed it, "the David of the sheep-folds." He was very tired, and had what he called "the tan-yard feeling," the oppression of business cares.
"Times are hard," said he, when we had finally shut out the starlight, and Mrs.Tod had lit candles, bade us good-night in her free, independent way, and "hoped Mr.Halifax had everything he wanted." She always seemed to consider him the head of our little menage.
"The times are very hard," repeated John, thoughtfully.

"I don't see how your father can rightly be left with so many anxieties on his shoulders.

I must manage to get to Norton Bury at least five days a week.