the sisters quite an elderly man, a sort of bachelor uncle to the
family, one with no concern in such youthful pastimes as love-making
and marrying, except as a benevolent onlooker and present-giver; and so
the veiled vigilance of his regard was not noticed, as it would not
have been understood, by anybody.

But other eyes, similarly occupied, were plainer to read.

Jim Urquhart's, of course. Jim--as ineligible for the most coveted
post in the Western District as he well could be, by reason of the
family already depending upon him, together with the load of debt left
along with it by his deceased father, a "pal" of Mr Pennycuick's in the
gay and good old times--still contrived to bring himself within
the radius of Deborah's observation whenever occasion served. And being
there, although silent and keeping to the background, his gaze followed
her as the gaze of an opossum follows a light on a dark night, with the
same still absorption. Nothing but her returning gaze could divert it
from its mark. It was so natural, so calmly customary, so unobtrusive,
that nobody cared to attach importance to it.

He sat now, far back against the green brocade hangings of a corner
window, where he could see the beloved profile in the middle of the
room. His big, work-roughened hands clasped his big, bony knees, and
his long, loose body hung forward out of the little chair that was
never built for such as he; and he seemed given over to Rose
Pennycuick's tale of the pony that had corns, and the cat that had been
mangled in a cruel rabbit trap. He gave her wise counsel regarding the
treatment of these poor things, his deep, drawling voice an unnoticed
instrument in the orchestra of tongues; but his crude-featured,
sunburnt face held itself steadily in the one direction. From the day