It was now many weeks since I had seen him, and when he was one morning shown into the blue drawing-room (into which I had been removed for a change), I was quite surprised to see how innocent and awkward a young man he appeared, confused even more than I was at our unexpected tete-a-tete.

He looked thinner, his eyes more eager, his expression more anxious, and his colour came and went more than it had done when I had seen him last.

I tried to make a little conversation, as I was, to my own surprise, more at my ease than he was; but his thoughts were evidently too much preoccupied for him to do more than answer me with monosyllables.
Presently my lady came in.

Mr.Gray twitched and coloured more than ever; but plunged into the middle of his subject at once.
"My lady, I cannot answer it to my conscience, if I allow the children of this village to go on any longer the little heathens that they are.

I must do something to alter their condition.