She is good-looking, clever, well-educated, and would be well-mannered were it not that she bristles up against the ill-usage of the world too roughly.' 'I didn't know it had gone so far as that,' said Shand, angrily.
'Nor did I, till you suggested it to me.

Now I think I'll go to sleep, if you please, and dream about it.' He did not go to sleep, but lay awake half thinking and half dreaming.
He certainly liked Mrs.Smith; but then, as he had begun to find out of himself he liked women's society generally.

He was almost jealous of the doctor, because the doctor was allowed to talk to Miss Green and waltz with Miss Green, whereas he could not approach her.

Then he thought of Maria Shand and that kiss in the little back parlour,--the kiss which had not meant much, but which had meant something; and then of Julia Babington, to whom he was not quite sure that he ought not to feel himself engaged.

But the face that was clearest to him of all,--and which became the dearer the nearer that he approached to a state of dozing,--was that of Hester Bolton, whose voice he had hardly heard, who had barely spoken to him;--the tips of whose fingers he had only just touched.