One patted Peter on the head, and the other ordered the chaise.

Neither Laura nor Mrs.Peter Melcombe could find courage to press them to eat, though their secluded lives and old-fashioned manners would have made them quite capable of doing so if they had felt at ease.

They looked at one another as the two grand old men withdrew, and their first words were of the disappointment the grandmother would feel when she heard that they had hardly eaten anything at all.
Madam Melcombe, however, asked no questions.

She was found by them when Mr.Mortimer and his brother had withdrawn sitting in her favourite alcove with her chin resting upon her staff.

She was deep in thought, and excepting that she watched the chaise drearily as it wound down among the apple and pear trees and was lost to sight, she did not appear to be thinking of her sons.