You are keeping me on thorns," said Lady Mary.
She grew red and white by turns.

Was John's happiness in sight already, as well as Peter's?
"It's--it's most awfully hard to tell you," said Peter.
He rose, and leant his elbow against the stone mullion nearest her, looking down anxiously upon her as he spoke.
"After all I said to you when we first came home, it's awfully hard.
But if you would only understand, you could make it all easy enough." "I will--I do understand." But Peter could not make up his mind even now to be explicit.
"You see," he said, "Sarah is--not like other girls." "Of course not," said his mother.
She controlled her impatience, reminding herself that Peter was very young, and that he had never been in love before.
"She's a kind of--of queen," said Peter, dreamily.

"I only wish you could have seen what it was in London." "I can imagine it," said Lady Mary.
"No, you couldn't.

I hadn't an idea what she would be there, until I went to London and saw for myself," said Peter, who measured everybody's imagination by his own.
"You see," he explained "my position here, which seems so important to you and the other people round here, and _used_ to seem so important to me--is--just nothing at all compared to what has been cast at her feet, as it were, over and over again, for her to pick up if she chose.

And this house," said Peter, glancing round and shaking his head--"this house, which seems so beautiful to you now it's all done up, if you'd only _seen_ the houses _she's_ accustomed to staying at.
Tintern Castle, for instance--" "I was born in a greater house than Tintern Castle, Peter," said Lady Mary, gently.
"Oh, of course.