He had come back fuller than ever of agreeable gossip, and Grace was chatting away to him, and beaming with pleasure, as innocent girls do, when out on a walk with a companion they like.

She was so absorbed she did not even see Henry Little.

He went off the pavement to make room for their tyrannical crinolines, and passed unnoticed.
He had flushed with joy at first sight of her, but now a deadly qualm seized him.

The gentleman was handsome and commanding; Miss Carden seemed very happy, hanging on his arm; none the less bright and happy that he, her humble worshiper, was downcast and wretched.
It did not positively prove much; yet it indicated how little he must be to her: and somehow it made him realize more clearly the great disadvantage at which he lay, compared with an admirer belonging to her own class.

Hitherto his senses had always been against his reason: but now for once they co-operated with his judgment, and made him feel that, were he to toil for years in London, or Birmingham, and amass a fortune, he should only be where that gentleman was already; and while the workman, far away, was slaving, that gentleman and others would be courting her.