He was quite alone, and he gave vent to an emphatic half-whisper to himself.
"If she did it, she's a magnificent deep one--a magnificent deep one." There was profound admiration in his voice.
That evening it was Mrs.Rexford who happened to wipe the tea-things while Eliza washed them.
"That young Mr.Harkness, the dentist--" began Eliza.
"Yes," said Mrs.Rexford, alert.
"Twice when I've been to the shop he's tried to make himself pleasant to me and the children.

I don't suppose he means any harm, but he's not a sensible young man, I think." "You're a very sensible girl, Eliza," said Mrs.Rexford, with quick vigour and without any sense of contrast.
"It doesn't matter to me," went on Eliza, "for I don't answer him more than I can help; but if he was to talk to the other girls when they go out, I suppose they'd know not to notice him too much." Mrs.Rexford was one of those people who get accustomed to circumstances in the time that it takes others to begin to wonder at them.

She often took for granted now that Eliza would consider her daughters as, entirely on a level with herself, but less sensible.

It might not be wholly agreeable; neither, to Mrs.Rexford's mind, was it agreeable to have the earth covered with snow for four months of the year; but she had ceased wondering at that phenomenon a minute after she had first read of it in a book of travels, and all the ever-fresh marvel of its glossy brightness had, failed to bring fresh comment to her lips, or to make her mind more familiar with the idea.

In the same way, she had accepted Eliza's position and character as a complex fact which, like the winter, had advantages and disadvantages.