because his gaze wandered with an admiring interest over her dress and
up into the dome of her sunshade; and because he put his chin in his
palm and leant his head towards her; and because the skin of his hand
was so crinkled and glossy. And he liked her because she was so
exquisitely fresh and candid, so elegant, so violent and complete a
contrast to James Ollerenshaw; so absurdly sagacious and sure of
herself, and perhaps because of a curve in her cheek, and a mysterious
suggestion of eternal enigma in her large and liquid eye. When she
looked right away from him, as she sometimes did in the conversation,
the outline of her soft cheek, which drew in at the eye and swelled out
again to the temple, resembled a map of the coast of some smooth,
romantic country not mentioned in geographies. When she looked _at_
him--well, the effect on him astonished him; but it enchanted him. He
was discovering for the first time the soul of a girl. If he was a
little taken aback he is to be excused. Younger men than he have been
taken aback by that discovery. But James Ollerenshaw did not behave as a
younger man would have behaved. He was more like some one who, having
heard tell of the rose for sixty years, and having paid no attention to
rumour, suddenly sees a rose in early bloom. At his age one knows how to
treat a flower; one knows what flowers are for.

It was no doubt this knowledge of what flowers are for that almost led
to the spilling of milk at the very moment when milk-spilling seemed in
a high degree improbable.

The conversation had left Susan and her caprices, and had reached Helen
and her solid wisdom.

"But you haven't told me what you're doing i' Bosley," said the old man.