"Is that the gushing woman with the quiet daughters who called last Thursday ?" "That is the lady," said Steel, a gleam of humor in his grim eyes.

He never expressed an opinion to his wife about any one of their neighbors, but when she let fall an impression of her own, he would look at her in this way, as though it was the very one that he had formed for himself a year ago.
"But need we go ?" asked Rachel, with open apprehension.
"I think so," he said.

"Why not ?" "A dinner-party, of all things! There is no cover at the dinner-table; you can't even wear a hat; you must sit there in a glare for hours and hours!" And Rachel shuddered.

"Oh, don't let us go!" she urged; but her tone was neither pathetic nor despairing; though free from the faintest accent of affection, it was, nevertheless, the tone of a woman who has not always been denied.
"I am afraid we must go," he said firmly, but not unkindly.

"You see, it is in our honor--as I happen to know; for Venables gave me a hint when I met him in the town the other day.