Ruby could neither move nor speak.

The spell upon her was much like that which had lain on Young Zeb, the night before, during the hornpipe.

She felt weak as a child in the presence of this man, or rather as one recovering from a long illness.

He seemed to fill the room, speaking words as if they were living things, as if he were taking the world to bits and re-arranging it before her eyes.
She divined the passion behind these words, and she longed to get a sight of it, to catch an echo of the voice that had sung beneath her window, an hour before.

But when he resumed, it was in the same bloodless and contemptuous tone.
"Your father was very anxious that I should supplant this young jowter--" "O Lord! I never said it." "Allow me," said the stranger, without deigning to look round, "to carry on this courtship in my own way.