She must certainly, he reflected, be thirty, and he was honestly delighted to see that the years had treated her so indulgently.

If her face had changed at all, it was in a slight hardening of the mouth--still eager enough to be very disconcerting at times, he felt--and in an added air of self-possession and self-reliance.

She carried her head, too, a little more resolutely.
When the story was finished, Miss Burgoyne turned pointedly to Alexander, and the other men drifted away.
"I thought I saw you in MacConnell's box with Mainhall one evening, but I supposed you had left town before this." She looked at him frankly and cordially, as if he were indeed merely an old friend whom she was glad to meet again.
"No, I've been mooning about here." Hilda laughed gayly.

"Mooning! I see you mooning! You must be the busiest man in the world.

Time and success have done well by you, you know.