"It is not often that we get news of the real world from him!" "Birds of a feather," remarked her caller: "it was Mr.Steel himself who wrote to your other eccentric friend, and told him neither more nor less than I have told you.

He was married in Italy last autumn; not even the town--not even the month--let alone the lady's name--if, indeed--" And Mrs.Venables concluded with a sufficiently eloquent hiatus.
"I imagine she is a lady," said the vicar to his tea.
"You are so charitable, dear Mr.Woodgate!" "I hope I am," he said simply.

"In this case I see no reason to be anything else." "What--when you know really nothing about Mr.Steel himself ?" And the bright brown eyes of Mrs.Venables grew smaller and harder as they pinned Hugh Woodgate to his chair.
"I beg your pardon," said that downright person; "I know a great deal about Mr.Steel.He has done an immense amount for the parish; there are our new schoolrooms to speak for themselves.

There are very few who would do the half of what Mr.Steel has done for us during the short time he has been at Normanthorpe." "That may be," said the lady, with the ample smile of conscious condescension; "for he has certainly not omitted to let his light shine before men.

But that is not telling us who or what he was before he came here, or how he made his money." Then Hugh Woodgate gave the half boyish, half bashful laugh with which he was wont to preface his most candid sayings.
"And I don't think it's any business of ours," he said.
Morna went a trifle browner than she naturally was; her husband said so little that what he did say was often almost painfully to the point; and now Mrs.Venables had turned from him to her, with a smile which the young wife disliked, for it called attention to the vicar's discourtesy while it appealed to herself for prettier manners and better sense.