True, he pondered over the incident, but in more deliberate fashion than a younger man would have done.

That is to say, his reflections were not so irresponsible and unsteady.

"She was a comely damsel," he said to himself as he opened his snuff-box and took a pinch.

"But the important point is: Is she also a NICE DAMSEL?
One thing she has in her favour--and that is that she appears only just to have left school, and not to have had time to become womanly in the worser sense.

At present, therefore, she is like a child.