He ceased his sharp scrutiny, and half smiled.
"Wilt thee stay, and have a dish of tea with us ?" So it came to pass, I hardly remember how, that in an hour's space our parlour beheld the strangest sight it had beheld since--Ah, no wonder that when she took her place at the table's foot, and gave him his dish of tea with her own hand--her pretty ringed lady's hand--my old father started, as if it had been another than Miss March who was sitting there.

No wonder that, more than once, catching the sound of her low, quiet, gentlewomanlike speech, different from any female voices here, he turned round suddenly with a glance, half-scared, half-eager, as if she had been a ghost from the grave.
But Mrs.Jessop engaged him in talk, and, woman-hater as he was, he could not resist the pleasantness of the doctor's little wife.

The doctor, too, came in after tea, and the old folk all settled themselves for a cosy chat, taking very little notice of us three.
Miss March sat at a little table near the window, admiring some hyacinths that Mrs.Jessop had brought us.

A wise present: for all Norton Bury knew that if Abel Fletcher had a soft place in his heart it was for his garden and his flowers.

These were very lovely; in colour and scent delicious to one who had been long ill.